thoughts on some passages from Fichte

I want to present and interpret a few quotes from Fichte. The italics are mine.

There is within me an impulse to absolute, independent self-activity. Nothing is more insupportable to me, than to be merely by another, for another, and through another; I must be something for myself and by myself alone...I explain this feeling to myself, by reflection; and add to this blind impulse the power of sight, by thought. 

I read something like Nietzsche's will to power in this. We might just as well call it a will to nobility or independence. For me it is a crucial point that this is a "blind impulse." Fichte points beneath rationality, beneath justifications in the realm of concept, and postulates an irrational or pre-rational urge. The systems of philosophers are the flowers of this urge. 

The immediate feeling of my impulse to independent activity lies at the foundation of this thought; the thought does no more than portray this feeling, and accept it in its own form,—the form of thought. 

The urge comes to know itself or portray itself to itself through Fichte's philosophy, for instance. I was originally exposed to this idea through Nietzsche. But here we find that Fichte was already there.

I have found the organ by which to apprehend this reality... Knowledge is not this organ:—no knowledge can be its own foundation, its own proof; every knowledge pre-supposes another higher knowledge on which it is founded, and to this ascent there is no end. It is Faith, that voluntary acquiescence in the view which is naturally presented to us, because only through this view we can fulfil our vocation;—this it is, which first lends a sanction to knowledge, and raises to certainty and conviction that which without it might be mere delusion. It is not knowledge, but a resolution of the will to admit the validity of knowledge. Let me hold fast for ever by this doctrine, which is no mere verbal distinction, but a true and deep one, bearing with it the most important consequences for my whole existence and character. All my conviction is but faith; and it proceeds from the character, not from the understanding. Knowing this, I will enter upon no disputation, because I foresee that thereby nothing can be gained; I will not suffer myself to be perplexed by it, for the source of my conviction lies higher than all disputation; I will not suffer myself to entertain the desire of pressing this conviction on others by reasoning, and I will not be surprised if such an undertaking should fail. I have adopted my mode of thinking first of all for myself, not for others, and before myself only will I justify it. He who possesses the honest, upright purpose of which I am conscious, will also attain a similar conviction; but without that, this conviction can in no way be attained. Now that I know this, I also know from what point all culture of myself and others must proceed; from the will, not from the understanding. 

This idea that "no knowledge can be its own foundation" encourages me to read Fichte as non- or post-systematic philosopher. At least in this passage he is an "irrationalist." Others will come to a similar conclusion as his own if they possess "the honest, upright purpose" of which he is conscious. This is elitism. This is not a universal philosophy. It is closed to those who do not experience the urge or will-to-power at a sufficient intensity. They are (it is implied) insufficiently noble. He is implicitly (like Nietzsche) reading philosophies as "symptoms." The noble or good man will manifest this nobility or goodness in a philosophy of freedom that portrays the "will" conceptually. For me a key line is before myself only will I justify it. In its purity (or at a sufficient intensity) this urge toward independence refuses the duty to justify itself. 

"All my conviction is Faith" is an abandonment of the authority of an ideal universal reason. Fichte sees the limits of theory. Skepticism is irrefutable. Metaphysics in its bloodless purity is futile. He understands himself to be foundationless in terms of the calculating, logic-chopping mind. If this urge is posited as a necessary structure of the self, then we might ask how this urge is served by being conceptually portrayed. I postulate that this portrayal is a rhetorical weapon against constraints on its own freedom. The urge firsts manifests the notion of an ideal universal reason in order to combat the oppression of superstition. Natural science is justified pragmatically, so we are really talking about ideal reason as a value or an authority. We are talking about unnatural science or what a positivist might call the pseudo-science of metaphysics. This is why the "urge" eventually (if sufficiently intense in the thinking individual) abandons the notion of ideal universal reason as an obsolete tool. The "blind impulse" rejects its dependence on this object that is not itself. It dis-identifies with "Reason." But the individual involved "walks away" from this obsolete tool or identification having transcended or negated "superstition." Yes, Fichte writes of faith, but clearly the supreme "spook" of ideal universal reason or Truth is not abandoned in order to go backwards toward a belief in ghosts and astrology. Reason demystified the world, cleansed it of threatening unknowns. Reason "tamed" the world into a system of predictable necessity that could be exploited without reverence when not being enjoyed aesthetically. Fichte, like Nietzsche, is a "post-rational" or "post-metaphysical" thinker. He can endure skepticism. He is not afraid of the "negative." He has immediate access to his "god," namely his own urge toward independence. Projecting this urge outward on others as the "truth" of their systems, he is not tempted by indirect or confused portrayals of this urge. He reads their systems as projections of personality that do not yet recognize themselves as such. 

The metaphysician needs impractical and untestable propositions to be true or false in an ideal "logical" space. To insist that this logical space does or does not exist presupposes this same logical space. As Fichte saw, those earnestly invested in plumbing this logical space as metaphysicians wander in an abyss. True, a systematic thinker can accuse Fichte of a premature retreat from metaphysics. The systematist might tell us that we are either shirking our duty to pursue the Truth or lost in error, which is to say pursuing it incorrectly. But these accusations presuppose an investment in the truth for its own sake. A Fichtean or a pragmatist challenges the necessity if not the sincerity of this investment. While "Truth" is one of the noblest identifications that "Spirit" itself passed through to its current worldview, it understands this identification to be imperfect or not quite absolute. "Spirit" seeks to be "fatherless." It hovers like a perfect sphere, complete in itself. This is a portrayal in the imagination of the goal of a blind or irrational impulse. We can postulate that this impulse wants to know itself conceptually and pictorially, which is to say in philosophy and art.

It is not the habit of the Science of Knowledge, nor of its author, to seek protection under any authority whatever. The person who has first to see whether this doctrine agrees with the doctrine of somebody else before he is willing to be convinced by it, is not one whom this science calculates to convince, because the absolute self-activity and independent faith in himself which this science presupposes, is wanting in him.

This is just arrogance in an introduction, right? What's important in Fichte is of course the actual metaphysics he does, the technical stuff, right? I don't think so. His personality (its "surplus") contains what I find fascinating and relevant in Fichte.

The essence of transcendental idealism generally, and of the Science of Knowledge particularly, consists in this, that the conception of being is not at all viewed as a first and original conception, but simply as a derived conception; derived from the opposition of activity. Hence it is considered only as a negative conception. The only positive for the idealist is Freedom; being is the mere negative of freedom. 

How does transcendental idealism serve or manifest the urge or blind impulse toward freedom or power? In my view, any "God" or "principle" that would be above the I is (by transcendental idealism) recognized within the I. That which I might have worshipped or served or defined myself in terms of is revealed to me as a mere object of my thoughtand therefore subject to my Freedom. We can confusedly talk of what God is in "himself," but God is only relevant as "knowledge" or in terms of how he exists within the I. Of course this is "I" as worldview or concept system. The empirical self is also enmeshed in or grounded by this "I" or concept system. So transcendental idealism also dissolves or negates its own notion of itself. The empirical ego is recognized as such and therefore "worn" more loosely. 

[a] philosophy, in order to be a science, need not be universally valid, as some philosophers seem to assume. These philosophers demand the impossible. What does it mean: a philosophy is really universally valid? Who, then, are all these for whom it is to be valid? I suppose not to every one who has a human face, for then it would also have to be valid for children and for the common man, for whom thinking is never object, but always the means for his real purpose.

A science doesn't have to be universally valid? We see the tension in Fichte here. He is attached to the word "Science" but abandons universal validity. 

Concerning this point, I hold the following: If there be but one man who is fully and at all times equally convinced of his philosophy, who is in complete harmony with himself in this his philosophy, whose free judgment in philosophizing agrees perfectly with the judgment daily life forces upon him, then in this one man philosophy has fulfilled its purpose and completed its circle; for it has put him down again at the very same point from which he started with all mankind; and henceforth philosophy as a science really exists, though no other man else should comprehend and accept it; nay, though that one man might not even know how to teach it to others.

Nuff said.

The highest interest, and hence the ground of all other interest, is that which we feel for ourselves. Thus with the Philosopher. Not to lose his Self in his argumentation, but to retain and assert it, this is the interest which unconsciously guides all his Thinking. Now, there are two grades of mankind; and in the progress of our race, before the last grade has been universally attained, two chief kinds of men. The one kind is composed of those who have not yet elevated themselves to the full feeling of their freedom and absolute independence, who are merely conscious of themselves in the representation of outward things. These men have only a desultory consciousness, linked together with the outward objects, and put together out of their manifoldness. They receive a picture of their Self only from the Things, as from a mirror; for their own sake they cannot renounce their faith in the independence of those things, since they exist only together with these things. Whatever they are they have become through the outer World. Whosoever is only a production of the Things will never view himself in any other manner; and he is perfectly correct, so long as he speaks merely for himself and for those like him. The principle of the dogmatist is: Faith in the things, for their own sake; hence, mediated Faith in their own desultory self, as simply the result of the Things.

But whosoever becomes conscious of his self-existence and independence from all outward things—and this men can only become by making something of themselves, through their own Self, independently of all outward things—needs no longer the Things as supports of his Self, and cannot use them, because they annihilate his independence and turn it into an empty appearance. The Ego which he possesses, and which interests him, destroys that Faith in the Things; he believes in his independence, from inclination, and [seizes] it with affection. His Faith in himself is immediate.

We have here a noble Satanism. I am myself more or less interested in elaborating something like Satanism. But I find the attachment to any particular image or symbol a little goofy. I also find organizations, fees, hierarchies to be fairly ridiculous here. 

Anonymous reddit posts are in some sense the perfect medium for this ideology or anti-ideology. Graffiti ! It is a surplus that cannot be tamed or successfully mainstreamed. It's deeply and stubbornly "contrarian." I sometimes think that I wan't to talk about it with others, enjoy it with others, but in other moments I realize that there's not much to say about it. In its purity it is pure fire. So I post this sort of thing imagining that other equally "free" thinkers will stumble on it and enjoy the recognition of the muted post horn. They will have other symbols. The insight resists any final formulation. 

In short we have a pragmatic egoism. I have creatively misread Fichte or really just used him as a pretext to write about what was only a seed in him. To be fair, it was already all there in Fichte, but it was diluted or obscured. The urge still portrayed itself to itself as Science, even as it also hinted that this science wasn't universal --and therefore not science. Words are the tools of that which is not word. Words are a mirror for that which is not word. In portraying itself, the "will to power" or "will to freedom" develops and extends itself. God or "ultimate meaning" that is external to the will undergoes various transformations that are retrospectively understood as an evolving portrayal/satisfaction of this "Will." Finally the will knows itself as will, and it knows words as tools rather than masters-to-emulate. It is not in the words, or rather the words it uses to portray itself point beyond the realm of mere concept. The I is pure will or pure freedom that works at getting behind "theology." But it has to lose itself in theology as it seeks for a recognition of itself beyond this seeking. But this seeking was the thing sought all along. Nevertheless this seeking is creative. Theology creates "God." Or rather theology is the means whereby "God" creates a body for himself. "God" unveils himself to himself in the conceptual realm or through theology. But theology only recognizes itself as "God" at the end of the process. 

We might say that worldviews are ethically or morally structured. The "ultimate meaning" is initially a universal object as opposed to a particular subject. But worldview becomes conscious of itself as worldview via transcendental idealism. This is apparent necessity dissolving in the freedom that through this dissolution comes to know itself.

Noble egoism is (as I understand it) just the addition of a "high" conception of egoism to the usual virtues. Stirner strategically used ugly phrases to break through the usual sentimentalities. This makes him hard to enjoy. He embarrasses me. Nevertheless he is a conceptually purer revelation of "absolute egoism" than Fichte is. But Fichte gets the tone right. Fichte is in the grip of beauty. His half-rational image of virtue is the "Human Form Divine" of Blake. 

The notion that I'm interested in is just the addition of freedom to virtue as its completion. Self-posession is the completion of a noble soul. He looks on the world and sees nothing that is above him. But he enjoys seeing that which is equal to him. His ideal world is populated by the gentle, the beautiful, and the self-possessed. Why this gentleness? I appeal to the image of the sphere. It is complete. It does not hurry after others in envy or resentment. It concerns itself with itself. It enjoys a mirroring of its own joyful completeness in the eyes of another. This is the "to-and-fro" is realized Spirit in Hegel as I understand it. Realized religion is a participation in this freedom and completeness. This is ideal community. 

But I'm no utopian. I think we settle for instants of this ideal community as they appear when we are with lovers and friends. Philosophy allows us to stand against chaos and confusion with a minimum of fear. We find stillness in the motion and silence in the noise. Others conceive themselves as victims or instruments, but we conceive ourselves as freedom that no longer reaches for a foundation or justification outside itself. We emerge from the confusion of childhood through a series of identifications with the substantial or objective, which is to say with permanence or being as opposed to becoming. These identifications are partial satisfactions. We enjoy a sense of progress as we climb what we already conceive of as a ladder. 

But the rungs below our current rung, exactly because they are below our current run, appear as idiosyncratic or insubstantial. For instance, I am under the spell of Nietzsche in my 20s, and this allows me to jettison not only traditional religion but also moral indignation in general. Through Nietzsche's borrowed eyes, it appears to me as false or insubstantial. But eventually I read Nietzsche's most substantial ideas against that in him that I detect by their light to be inferior to this substantiality. I jettison Nietzsche-as-political-windbag.

The influence is consumed, digested, transcended. We have taken what we can use and excreted the rest. It no longer matters that we happened to get this or that insight from Nietzsche. The insight continues to matter, but the source is not substantial. If we meet others who achieved this insight in some other way, we will no longer pretentiously insist on the contingent medium through which we happened to obtain this insight. His name is no longer a magic word. For me philosophy has largely been a progressive demystification of magic words. It is a "counter spell."

Similarly the insight of absolute (noble) egoism puts us in a position of generalized creative misreading. If we no longer project authority away from ourselves and insist on the sanctity of our own minds, then every thinker becomes food for thought. The "alienated" thinker opens a book as if he were at a museum of fine art. "Spirit" opens a book as if it were cracking a egg on the side of a frying pan. "I am pretty fucking complete already, but let's see if I can add a new tool to my belt." At his best, Nietzsche is an incomparable poet of the imperious spirit as a stomach. I twist the proteins of my influences into a new unity, into a unique synthesis. My image of human beauty includes the notion of self-creation. I must be a "strong poet" in Bloom's sense. But this "must" is not a duty imposed on me but instead an irruption from within me. It is that urge toward independence and self-creation already portraying itself conceptually in Fichte's philosophy. Presumably Fichte still saw himself to some degree as a revealer of that which was already there, as a scientist. But he revealed the object that creates itself, which is to say the ego as the self-revealing or rather self-creating poesis or "bringing-forth." Nevertheless the philosopher as creator rather than discovered becomes more explicit as the tradition evolves. The "strong poet" (or he who dreams of himself as a strong poet) is prouder than the scientist. He wants to make his reality. Most importantly he wants to make himself. His makings not only reveal but construct their maker. Or rather they construct a portrayal of this maker who is ultimately an unnamable creative nothing. But this creative nothing delights in naming and un-naming itself. It itself names itself as that which cannot be conclusively named. Its essence is the negation of essence in the sense that it is never finally born and yet always being born. If we can only know "mind" or the "poetic genius" by its products, then we cannot hope to fix the nature of this endlessly creative mind. It feeds and builds upon that which is always already its past. 

If it believes that it is X, then its consciousness that it believes that it is X cancels this identity with X. Nevertheless, this knowledge of its transcendence of its products is a talisman against the seduction of its products. That it remembers itself as the creator of gods insures that it remains the God of all therefore lesser gods. The transcendental idealist by definition remembers (or believes or insists) that beings are objects for itself as subject and therefore "ground." It is the ground of all objects. The "I" engulfs all gods, all principles, all gurus and masters. It recognizes the nullity of the thing-in-itself, the Secret that would dominate it, and therefore becomes absolute. This is Mind understanding itself in its power and glory. The "incarnation" of Mind is complete when this "Mind" is recognized as individual, as personal. The metaphysician embraces himself as "strong poet," as creator rather than discoverer. His own dignity and nobility are "leaps of faith" that manifest dignity and nobility. Less aware personalities imagine fixed social reality to which they must conform. The strong poet imposes on linguistic reality and reshapes it. He offers splinters of his own constantly transcended personality as tools or toys for other self-transcending personalities.