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[lit-ideas] Re: The hilarity of Fichte

From: "Erin Holder" <erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 23:43:17 -0400

It gets better!

The Wissenschaftslehre is itself a science.  Thus it too must begin with one
first principle - a first principle that cannot be proven within the
Wissenschaftslehre, but has to be presupposed for this to be possible as a
science.  But neither can this first principle be proven within any higher
science.  For in that case this higher science would itself be the
Wissenschaftslehre, and the science whose first principle first had to be
demonstrated would not be the Wissenschaftslehre.  Consequently, this first
principle, the first principle of the Wissenschaftslehre, and through it the
first principle of all science and knowledge, simply cannot be proven.
(I,48)

That one's a gem, too.

Erin
Toronto



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Erin Holder" <erin.holder@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2004 10:49 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The hilarity of Fichte


> And here I thought my day would be boring.  I've decided that Fichte's
> Development of the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre is one of the most
> downright hilarious things I've read in quite some time.  No doubt it
might
> just be the translation, but still, wow, it's DAMN funny.
>
> This is my favourite passage so far:
>
> "But suppose that it could be shown that, in the wake of all previous
> experience, the field which remains available for scientific cultivation
is
> already occupied by the appropriate sciences and that there appears to be
> only one uncultivated plot remaining, namely, the one marked out for the
> science of science as such.  An suppose, furthermore, that under a
familiar
> name ("philosophy") one discovers the idea of a science, that is, the idea
> of something which wishes to be or to become a science, but which cannot
> decide where it should take root.  In this case it would not be improper
to
> direct it toward the empty plot we have discovered.  It is immaterial
> whether or not people have always meant precisely this by the word
> "philosophy".  Afterward, this science (if philosophy ever becomes a
> science) will be justified in casting off a few names which it has
> previously assume out of a (a by no means exaggerated) modesty:  the names
> "esoteric amusement," "hobby,", and "diletantism."  The nation [and this
is
> the best part] which discovered this science would deserve to give it a
name
> in its own language, in which case it could be called simply "science" or
> [...]"
>
> (I,45 Development of the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre)
>
>
> OK.  Just thought I'd share.  Back to work.  I'm aware.  It's Saturday
> night.  I'm starting to entertain the possibility that my youth is being
> seriously misspent.
>
>
> Erin
> Toronto
>
>
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[lit-ideas] Re: The hilarity of Fichte
From: Michael Chase

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- [lit-ideas] The hilarity of Fichte
  - From: Erin Holder

[lit-ideas] Re: The hilarity of Fichte

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