Transcendental Philosophy and Intersubjectivity: Mutual Recognition as a Condition for the Possibility of Self‐Consciousness in Sections 1–3 of Fichte's Foundations of Natural Right

Abstract

In the opening sections of his Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte argues that mutual recognition is a condition for the possibility of self‐consciousness. However, the argument turns on the apparently unconvincing claim that, in the context of transcendental philosophy, conceptions of the subject as an isolated individual give rise to a vicious circle the resolution of which requires the introduction of a second rational being to ‘summon’ the first. In this essay, my aim is to present a revised account of the opening arguments on which they are more convincing. In particular, I argue that the problem of a circle is genuine and may be seen to result from a relation of mutual dependence between agency and cognition which ensures that for an exercise of either capacity to take place, an exercise of the other would have already had to have taken place with the result that neither can occur. Moreover, the solution is successful. The summons (the claim of the other) prevents us from being driven around the circle once more because it is a ‘synthesis’ that reconciles the constraint to which I am subject as a cognizer of independently given objects and my freedom as a self‐determining subject.

rol pedagógico en el segundo Sistema trascendental de Jena de J. G. Fichte

“…Y, en segundo lugar, que este ser racional finito, para atribuirse su propia actividad, debe admitir a otros seres semejantes a él con quien entra en relación (GA I/340). Ambos teoremas, según Mcnulty (2016) suponen un problema grave para la intersubjetividad en la medida en que se debe tener claridad que aquel otro ser racional finito no es, por ejemplo, un "autómata" o un "animal doméstico" (14). Esto quiere decir que no basta con suponer que el encuentro con otro es, inmediatamente, el contacto con otro ser racional finito, más bien, este debe mostrarse de tal manera que no quede espacio para ser reconocido de otra forma.…”

Toward a Post-Kantian Construct

“…Here I will be preoccupied with offering a sense of what post-Kantian agency might look like, on the grounds that it has an important theoretical role to play as discussed in §1, and I will not have the space to argue for it on the merits. For various conceptions of mutual recognition associated with Fichte and Hegel, and arguments to the effect that it is an essential feature of self-consciousness and human agency, see Fichte (1797), Hegel (1807), Neuhouser (1986), Wood (1990), Franks (1996), Pinkard (1994), Honneth (1996), Brandom (2007), Pippin (2008), Schmidt am Busch and Zurn (2009), Clarke (2009), McNulty (2016), Brandom (2019). Darwall (1977) and Scanlon (1998) use a different, more morally substantive sense of 'mutual recognition'.…”

Fichte's conception of the body: The intertwining of sociality and embodiment

“…9 For helpful discussions regarding the distinction between Tat and Handlung, see Alznauer (2018), Pippin (2010, 147ff), andQuante (1993). 10 Fichte's argument in the second theorem of the FNR has been the subject of intense scholarly attention in recent years (see Darwall, 2005;Honneth, 2001;McNulty, 2016;Nance, 2015;Neuhouser, 2000;Wood, 2016, 91ff, among others).…”

“…10 10 Fichte's argument in the second theorem of the FNR has been the subject of intense scholarly attention in recent years (see Darwall, 2005; Honneth, 2001; McNulty, 2016; Nance, 2015; Neuhouser, 2000; Wood, 2016, 91ff, among others). The key in all these interpretations is Fichte's concept of the “summons” (Aufforderung), that is, a second‐person address which puts the addressee into an ineludible position in which she must exercise her efficacy (FNR, p. 31).…”