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Now the essence of critical philosophy is this, that an absolute self is postulated as wholly unconditioned and incapable of determination by any higher thing...Any philosophy, on the other hand, is dogmatic, when it creates or opposes anything to the self as such; and this is does by appealing to the supposedly higher concept of the thing, which is thus quite arbitrarily set up as the absolutely highest conception. In the critical system, a thing is what is posited in the self; in the dogmatic it is that wherein the self is posited: critical philosophy is thus immanent, since it posits everything in the self; dogmatism is transcendent, since it goes out beyond the self.

The critical philosopher intends to liberate and glorify the "I" and the dogmatist or systemizer to reduce and tame it. 

Roughly speaking we have the attitude that wants to know the Thing and participate indirectly in its authority and the attitude that prefers a direct claim to a more subjective authority. The Thing transcends all individuals, so knowledge of the Thing is participation in a dominance, roughly speaking. The theory of the I, or critical philosophy, negates the Thing altogether (in its strong metaphysical form) or as an authority (in its more plausible, reduced ethical form.) Those who insist on the priority of the Thing have a hard time understanding the "irresponsible" and "grandiose" proponents of the "I." At the same time the proponents of the "I" (which might be called Freedom) can find adherents of the Thing unnecessarily pious and servile. Fichte himself thought that one position could not refute the other. Instead we are revealed by the leap of faith we take in regard to first principles. In my view, philosophy these days largely serves as rational religion. In that sense Fichte is a theologian, except that "critical" theology engulfs and becomes the God of pre-critical theology. In Hegel (according to one interpretation) we see theology creating the very God it seeks in its confused pursuit of Him as a transcendent object. 

The rejection of the Thing can be interpreted as a rejection of the Secret. This "Secret" is perhaps a God who hides or the as yet undiscovered enlightenment of the guru or spiritual master. This secret might be the "round square" of the mystic who assures us that the Truth is neither conceptual nor sensual nor emotional. It, this mystic thing, is something radically other than the self as it has always known itself. 

The Thing is also the "true meaning" of the philosopher we only partially understand. We dominate and are dominated by others in terms of the objective value and meaning of thing, perhaps even the true meaning of Fichte himself. We see in a thing-like approach to philosophy the constant shift away from what we here and now can make of a text (creative misreading) toward the legitimate objective interest in the meaning-in-itself. This might be called an indirect egoism. Our fidelity to the Thing is paramount. We shine by reflecting the glow of the Thing. 

We cannot tolerate direct light (a direct claim to value and authority) unless we feel this value and authority welling up in ourselves. If we accept that freedom (or consciousness of freedom) is the erotic object of spirituality, then we can frame the desire for recognition in terms of a desire to share joy in order to increase this joy. Of course this desired mutual recognition of freedom will only reinforce this possession as well. The social world becomes (ideally) more and more the mirror of freedom. "Spiritual" friendship is even a "religious" practice, except without the necessity of piety or angst. We have the same 'porous God' (Feuerbach) in two different manifestations. But the idiosyncrasies of these manifestations become toys or trivialities to the shared "divine" consciousness that hovers over them without obliterating them. 

Idealism (critical philosophy) finds a divine spark at the center or as the essence of the individual. Blake and Whitman live here. The future has primacy as it is born in the present from the ashes of the past. Thing-ideology is past-oriented or eternity-oriented (a twist on past-orientation denying the future as geniune, unknown future altogether.) The man of the Thing is absorbed in the Thing and has no reality outside of it (in theory at least, since these polarities are abstractions from the complexity of living individuals.) For example, I can (in theory) derive my dignity from a distant God or as natural scientist who reveres Objectivity not only for pragmatic reasons but "spiritually." I can derive my dignity from political action, from being on the right side of history. I can even paradoxically derive my dignity from "anti-"political action. I can preach the futility of X in terms of the objective truth of Y. I can bemoan the stupidity of man and call for his extinction, implicitly deriving my dignity from some objective principle that man fails to live up to. We have the vanity of the self opposed to the vanity of the world. Either all is vanity before the I or the I is nothing without its participation in the Thing (Stirner's sacred.) Children are trained to find their substance in the thing, so the "I" must be dialectically revealed in terms of the Ego's or Reasons's transformation of the Thing that finally finds it to be Ego (which is to say a projection, etc.)

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If the true infinite is strictly the negation of the finite, then the kingdom that is not of this world is completely described by its name. That's all there is to say about the true infinite. It is not finite. Period. It is just the finite held in negation. It is a "not" put in front of every -ism or Cause or identity. And this complete negation gathers everything finite up into the concept of the finite. Of course we already have the word to play with, but the meaning I have in mind here is only visible at the exact moment of this gathering up of finite causes. The structure becomes optional and visible at the same moment. The "visible" is the optional. The assumptions we are blind to are necessities. Freedom (as I idiosyncratically intend it) is just the shining of light on these false necessities so that they can become recognized as contingent.