Idealism as an Awakening of the Soul: Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Fichte claims that the distinctive spirit ( Art) of the German people lives in his world view. This thought makes sense when one brings before one's soul precisely his picture of that path to self-knowledge which he seeks in contradistinction to Descartes. This path is what Fichte felt to be German; and as a traveler on this path, he differs from Descartes, who takes the spiritual path of the Romance peoples. Descartes seeks a sound basis for self-knowledge; he expects to find this sound basis somewhere. In thinking he believes he has found it. Fichte expects nothing from this kind of search. For, no matter what he might find, why should it afford a greater certainty than anything already found? No, along this path of investigation there is absolutely nothing to be found. For, this path can lead only from picture to picture; and no picture one encounters can guarantee, out of itself, its being. Therefore, to begin with, one must entirely abandon the path through pictures, and return to it again only after gaining certainty from some other direction.