6. Epistemology without Presuppositions and Fichte's Theory of Science

Let us look back over sFichte train of thought once more. On closer inspection a gap appears in it, a gap, in fact, that calls into question the correctness of Fichte's view of the original deed of the “I.” What is it then actually that is absolute in the positing of the “I”? The judgment is made: If a is, then a is. The a is posited by the “I.” About this positing, therefore, no doubt can prevail. But even if this activity is unconditional, the “I” can only posit something or other. It cannot posit “activity in and for itself,” but only a particular activity. In short: Positing must have a content. But it cannot take this content out of itself, for otherwise it could do nothing more than eternally posit the activity of positing. Thus for positing, for the absolute activity of the there must be something that is realized through this activity. If the “I” does not take hold of some “given” that it posits, then it can posit nothing at all and consequently cannot* posit. This is also apparent in Fichte's statement: The “I” posits its existence. This existence is a category. We are back again at our statement: The activity of the “I” depends upon the fact that the “I,” out of its own free decision, posits the concepts and ideas of the “given.” Fichte comes to this result by unconsciously setting out to show the “I” as “something existing.” If he had developed the concept of our activity of knowing, he would have arrived at the true starting point of epistemology: The “I” posits knowing activity. Since Fichte did not make clear to himself the determinants of the “I's” activity, he simply designated the character of this activity to lie in the positing of existence. By doing so, however, he limited the absolute activity of the “I.” For if only the “I's” “positing of existence” is unconditional, then everything else that goes forth from the “I” is conditional. But every path by which to go from the unconditional to the conditional is also cut off. If the “I” is only unconditional in the direction just described, then the “I” immediately loses all possibility of positing, by an original act, anything other than its own existence. Thus the necessity arises of indicating the basis for all the other activity of the “I.” Fichte sought in vain for such a basis, as we have already seen above.