The “absolute I” and the “absolute” in the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Abstract

The article deals with the relationship between the concepts of the “absolute I” and “absolute” in the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the relationship of the latter with faith and religion. These concepts play the role of the principle of his philosophy in the early and late period of his work, respectively. The topic of the article is relevant to the issues of religion and theology, first of all, in the sense that in the tradition of interpretation of Fichte’s doctrine, the following two ideas are fixed. First, the principle of the “absolute I” is interpreted as subjective-idealistic, which is why Fichte in the early period of his work had to place the object of faith outside and above knowledge. Second, many researchers are of the view that in his later years, Fichte proceeds to a religious motivated philosophizing that finds expression in his doctrine to change the principle of the “absolute I” with the principle of “absolute”, which is the philosophical equivalent to the concept of God. In the first part of the article, based on the texts of Fichte himself, the unsatisfactoriness of these ideas and the identity of the content of the concepts of the “absolute I” and “absolute” in Fichte are shown. Further, it is demonstrated that the identical content of these concepts is the unconditional first cause of both being and cognition. From the beginning of his work, Fichte sought to understand the true nature of the original and thereby reveal his own definiteness of the subject of religious faith. According to Fichte, his philosophy should overcome the limitations of the theological teachings that preceded it in questions about the essence of the first cause, divine creation and the possibility of its knowledge, and therefore, in fact, represents the experience of creating a new theology.