Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1889.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: London : Trübner; Publication date: 1873; Subjects: Literary Collections / General; Literary Collections / General; ... Read more

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Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. Fichte is often perceived as a figure whose philosophy forms a bridge between the ideas of Kant and the German Idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Like Descartes and Kant before him, the problem of subjectivity and consciousness motivated much of his philosophical rumination. Fichte also wrote political philosophy, and is thought of by some as the father of German nationalism. His works include: Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792), Foundations of Natural Right (1796), Characteristics of the Present Age (1806) and Addresses to the German Nation (1808). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Neglected gem of Fichte's popular works
This is a review of the importance of this work by Fichte, not the translation, which is more or less accurate to Fichte's German.

The Characteristics of the Present Age belongs with Fichte's popular works, for they were given publically and were intended to work out the implications of his transcendental idealism for practical matters such as history and politics. In this, these lectures serve an analogous function to Hegel's own lectures on the philosophy of history (given as college lectures and not public talks per se), though Fichte's lectures have never served as popular introductions to his speculative philosophy, as Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of history did for his thought. Indeed, Fichte's Characteristics of the Present Age have suffered from benign neglect in the non-German speaking world; while the various editions of the difficult and even byzantine Wissenschaftslehre are studied regularly, Characteristics is relegated to obscurity as an idiosyncratic statement on historical necessity by a philosopher about to be eclipsed by younger, more radical thinkers such as Hegel. Collingwood (1994:108) sums up much of the scholarship dealing with Fichte's philosophy of history: "The chief difficulty which a reader finds in dealing with Fichte's view of history is the difficulty of being patient with what appears so silly," though he does not think that this verdict is completely warranted, and for good reason. For just as Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre is widely recognized as the most important link in the development of idealism from Kant to Hegel, so is Characteristics the single most important link between Herder's romantic appropriation of the philosophy of history from Voltaire, and the full flowering of philosophy of history in Hegel. Herder provided the impetus for looking at historical ages as actual histories which had value in and of themselves; Fichte is able to take these histories, more specifically the history of his own time, and infuse them with a universal philosophy which, though Herder had warned against such all-encompassing systems of thought, was able to perfectly catch the Zeitgeist of the emerging nineteenth century political and philosophical ferment. Though it remained for Hegel to make the philosophical understanding of history truly philosophical in a way that his contemporaries would embrace, Fichte is the first important post-Kantian philosopher to offer a comprehensive system of history and philosophy which attempts to come to terms with both actual history, and universal philosophical claims. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This is the first translation of Fichte's addresses to the German nation for almost 100 years. The series of 14 speeches, delivered whilst Berlin was under French occupation after Prussia's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Jena in 1806, is widely regarded as a founding document of German nationalism, celebrated and reviled in equal measure. Fichte's account of the distinctiveness of the German people and his belief in the native superiority of its culture helped to shape German national identity throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. With an extensive introduction that puts Fichte's argument in its intellectual and historical context, this edition brings an important and seminal work to a modern readership. All of the usual series features are provided, including notes for further reading, chronology, and brief biographies of key individuals. ... Read more

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This Book Is In German. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Open Court Pub. Co. in 1906 in 217 pages; Subjects: Human beings; Faith; Philosophy / General; Philosophy / General; Philosophy / Epistemology; Philosophy / Movements / Humanism; Philosophy / History & Surveys / Modern; Religion / Faith; ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

If I could give a lower score I would but not because of Fichte
The publication I bought from Amazon is a disaster.It is quite literally the worst publication I have ever seen.Amazon should ban this publisher(general books).Let me tell you why.While i was excited to purchase Fichte and have indeed bought many philosophy books from Amazon I was a bit apprhensive.This book is not poorly translated , it is not even translated by a human!The publisher had a computer scan and translate the original Vocation of man!To make matters worse no one and I mean no one took the time too actually look at the translation!I have read Fichte before and I never knew he wrote lines similiar to "thus the #$%mmMhfksjgSSS is theidea of hurt SHsdHG@$*___//" and those type of mistakes are everywhere.If you want to see the worst book ever made this amy be it!Dont buy this book! and dont endorse lazy publishers who dont even open thier product to see if it even readable. THIS IS UNREADABLE!This is from General books.Really a shame since Fichtes stuff is rather charming.

The dead end of practical reason
I always suspected that there was something religious about that pathfinder of agnosticism, Immanuel Kant. Somehow, Kant had banished God through the main gate, only to allow him access by the kitchen window. Indeed, some theologians believe that Kant's real project was to find a new proof for God in a situation where the old proofs have failed.

True or false? No idea. Innovative philosophers often stand at thresholds, and their ideas can point in different directions. There is little doubt, however, that Kant's philosophy *can* be given a religious slant. If Kant had been God, Johann Gottlieb Fichte would have been his prophet!

I admit that "The Vocation of Man" is the only text by Fichte I've read (so far). Judging by what I read about Fichte in other works, his philosophy is difficult to understand, but it's usually classified as subjective idealism, solipsism or pantheism. He is also regarded as a founder of German nationalism. When leafing through one of his other works, I also noticed an extreme misogyny. As for "The Vocation of Man", Fichte wrote it shortly after being fired from his professorship, accused of atheism. It's therefore ironic that the work has a heavy religious taint. Whatever else Fichte might have been, he was surely no atheist. (Except in the trivial sense in which all religions accuse every other religion of "atheism". Fichte wasn't a traditional Christian.)

"The Vocation of Man" is a frustrating read. The work is divided into three sections, titled "Doubt", "Knowledge" and "Faith". The third section is the main one. The style of the book is extremely uneven. Sometimes philosophical, sometimes written as a dialogue, frequently preachy and sermonizing. Fichte makes some correct points in the first part of "Faith", where he criticizes abstract idealist metaphysics, only to suddenly embark on an unproductive quest for the divine and the supernatural. He even embraces reincarnation as he goes along!

Fichte believes that one cannot really prove the existence of the outside world by philosophical, metaphysical arguments. He is right, if "philosophy" is taken to mean the narrow subjective idealism his literary spirit-companion espouses in "Knowledge". Fichte further says that we can't even "prove" that we are thinking or perceiving, since this is something we simply know, in a prephilosophical sense. So how can we be sure that the outside world exists? Theoretically, we cannot. Kantian "pure" reason can't give us this knowledge. However, our "practical" reason shows us that there is indeed such a world. We automatically assume that the world exists, not by abstract thinking, but by acting. We automatically go on acting as if there was freedom, meaning and morality. We act as if there are other people, other human beings just like us, who are also free and ethical beings. Our acting is aimed at moral perfection, and also at the perfection of society itself, through a process of social and political reform, eventually culminating in a world society.

So what on earth is the problem then???

The problem, for Fichte, is that he was still stuck in the cul-de-sac of subjective idealism or solipsism. Instead of seeing the inevitability of human practice as evidence for the objective existence of an outside world, he still clings to the absurd notion that this cannot really be proven philosophically. Not even the fact that human practice *changes* the world is enough for Johann Gottlieb. He clearly didn't understand that Practice is itself a form of Theory (to borrow a phrase form somebody else). From his vantage point of radicalized Kantianism, Fichte could only say that we believe in the outside world by a leap of faith. And it turns out to be a pretty large one, too, since Fichte then deduces the existence of the supernatural realm and the immortality of the soul from this faith, this faith of the "practical" reason. The supernatural realm simply *must* exist, since perfectibility isn't possible for us in one lifetime. Fichte here leaves his partially correct insight (practice as key to the outside world), and starts floating on the winds of faith to...the Empyrean. Or is it just Brahman as usual? In practice (!), this strikes me as another kind of sterile metaphysics, granted access through the kitchen window, as it were.

It's not working. And it certainly didn't get any better when Fichte attempted to deduce the subordination of women from some kind of timeless principles.

At least judging by "The Vocation of Man",Fichte was out on a limb with his philosophy, and it turned out to be another dead end, this time the dead end of...practical reason.

Rich and exciting (even if ultimately unsatisfying) response to (or assessment of) Kantian Transcendental Idealism
Fichte's excellent little treatise is both an outline of the argument for transcendental idealism and a passionate response that finds the Kantian position to be inadequate to speak to our deepest sentiments.It is intended as a popular treatise, but is not lacking in profundity and not an easy read -- it is popular in the way that Descartes' Meditations is popular: there is a line of thinking that is easy enough to trace throughout the book but the details can be quite daunting.

The beginning of the book is in fact clearly set as an intriguing contrast to that of Descartes.Where Descartes says that for as much as he knows he can't be sure of anything, Fichte says that even if we could be sure of everything, that still wouldn't answer the most fundamental question of what to do, of how to find one's true vocation.The treatise is broken down into three books, one on "Doubt," one on "Knowledge," and one on "Faith" (as another reviewer notes, the culmination of his position in faith is intended as a response to the charges of atheism that were levelled against Fichte, but for those who understand his argument and what he proposes inthe book on faith, it should be clear that his avowal of faith is not exactly a commitment to Christian dogma).

The first book sets up what seems to be an ordinary or natural conception of the world.We are free agents faced with a reality outside of us that is governed by causal laws.Seems obvious enough, but Fichte shows that this conception is ultimately contradictory: if the world is governed by laws then so are we, or at least so are our bodies, and our bodies form the only basis for interaction with the world.Without bodies we are not agents, able to make a difference in the reality we face.On the other hand, if we are agents, then we interrupt the causality of the world, and where there are exceptions there can be no law.So, it seems, either we are not free, or the world is not subject to law.

The second book is set up as a dialogue between Fichte and an unknown Spirit (seemingly not malicious, but as a literary trope to be compared with Socrates' daemon and Descartes' evil genius).The Spirit pushes Fichte to realize that whatever law he discovers out there in nature can be nothing other than what he himself posits as the structure to his experience.Causality (as in Kant) is not something that exists out there in the thing itself but is something we bring with us, and only by representing the world as acausally structured totality is experience of the world possible.But that means that the order we discover in the world is not "out there" but of our own making.What we call "the world" or "reality" is nothing more than representation. This seems to solve the contradiction of the first book insofar as the idea that we are determined in our actions does not proceed from an objective knowledge of true causes outside of us. The problem is that it replaces the despair over determinism with a despair over reality: if I can't really know anything out there and independent of me and my experience then I seem to be stuck in a solipsistic cave, and nothing means anything, and the question of vocation seems silly.

The third book on Faith is where he resolves this.His solution is fairly elaborate and he outlines it in several stages, but in a nutshell the solution is to say: as far as I can know this world may as well be a dream and my choices absurd and everything meaningless, but I choose not to rest upon what I can know.Just because I can't know any further than representation doesn't mean I have to treat my world as a mere representation.I can consciously return to the naive attitude which takes an interest in the world, and invests what seem to the idealist as mere images with a significance and meaning.I can't know other people, for example, but can choose to treat what reason tells me are images of people as if they were rational agents like myself, owed a respect and dignity that is deeper than knowledge can account for.I can choose to think myself free, and attempt to fulfill my destiny -- and if it comes to nothing I can believe that my good intentions are nevertheless counted as right in the ultimate scheme of things, which I can't know but posit by faith.

All of the above is not intended to spoil the excitement of this very valuable philosophical treatise.It is a harder read than it seems at the outset, and having some grasp of the trajectory can be useful to the beginning reader.At the same time, it takes a lot of work to get to the point where you can meaningfully assess and respond to the approach Fichte concludes with.I'm troubled a bit by the idea that faith alone gives me access to others -- but I find the book as a whole to be an exemplary and lively attempt to continue the philosophical dialogue where Kant left off.Definitely worth reading for anyone with an interest in the history of philosophy, and essential for those seeking to understand the Kantian heritage.

Fichte's Vocation of Man
This book was written by Fichte to discredit the charges of atheism which were brought against him which forced him to leave the University of Jena. The book is written for non-professional philosophers, he intended it for the greater public; because of this, it is among the easier reads in philosophy.

Fichte challenges reality itself in this book. He leads you down his path of thought from doubt to belief in a supreme moral being. He essentially illustrates the historical stages of metaphysical thought within his lucid self directed dialogue.

I read this book for a philosophy course on German Idealism. It was a pleasant preface to other German idealism philosophers. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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Confiscationsrescript Ihm Beigemessenen Atheistischen Aeusserungen. This Book Is In German. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This Book Is In German. ... Read more