{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 3/l06/p005","lang":"en","edition":"RSPI1963","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"On the basis of Kant's synthesis of “transcendental apperception”[^7] Fichte came to the conclusion that the activity of the I consists entirely in combining the material of experience into the form of judgment. To judge means to combine predicate with subject. This is stated purely formally in the expression: *a == a*. This proposition could not be made if the unknown factor *x* which unites the two *a*'s did not rest on an absolute ability of the I, to postulate. For the proposition does not mean *a* exists, but rather: if *a* exists, then so does *a*. In other words there is no question of postulating *a* absolutely. In order, therefore, to arrive at something which is valid in a quite straightforward way, the only possibility is to declare the act of postulating as such to be absolute. Therefore, while *a* is conditional the *postulation* of *a* is itself unconditional. This postulation, however, is a deed of the I. To the I is ascribed the absolute and unconditional ability to postulate. In the proposition *a == a*, one *a* is postulated only because the other *a* is already postulated, and indeed is postulated by the I. “If *a* is postulated in the I, then it is postulated, or then it is.”[^8] This connection is possible only on condition that there exists in the I something which is always constant, something that leads over from one *a* to the other. The above mentioned *x* is based on this constant element. The I which postulates the one *a* is the same as the I which postulates the other *a*. This means that I == I. This proposition expressed in the form of a judgment: If the I exists, then the I exists, is meaningless. The I is not postulated by presupposing another I; it presupposes itself. This means: the I simply is, absolutely and unconditionally. The hypothetical form of a judgment, which is the form of all judgments, when an absolute I is not presupposed, here is transformed into a principle of absolute existence: *I* simply *am*. Fichte also expresses this as follows: “The I originally and absolutely postulates its own being.”[^9] This whole deduction of Fichte's is clearly nothing but a kind of pedagogical discussion, the aim of which is to guide his reader to the point where knowledge of the unconditional activity of the I dawns in him. His aim is to bring the activity of the I emphatically home to the reader, for without this activity there is no I.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"VI. Theory of Knowledge Free of Assumptions and Fichte's Science of Knowledge","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"word_count":421,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/3/l06/p005","alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"count_diverges","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["MP1993","RSPI1963","SOL2024"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/3/l06/p005"},{"lang":"en","edition":"RSPI1963","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/3/l06/p005"},{"lang":"en","edition":"MP1993","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/3/l06/p005?edition=MP1993","paragraph_aligned":true},{"lang":"en","edition":"SOL2024","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":false,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/3/l06/p005?edition=SOL2024"}],"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.16,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":4501,"original_word_count":3893,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"status":"unknown","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"not_checkable","note":"No verified paragraph alignment covers this passage, so its names cannot be compared with the German."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}