“Transcendentalism”

Fichte’s Kantian Conception of First Philosophy in the Aphorisms on the Essence of Philosophy as Science from 1804

Abstract

The article features a short text by J.G. Fichte (1762-1814) dating from 1804, entitled Aphorisms on the Essence of Philosophy as Science and presented here for the first time in English translation. Fichte’s text is preceded by a section each on Kant’s and Fichte’s novel conception of first philosophy as transcendental philosophy and Wissenschaftslehre, respectively. The article argues for a depsychologized and logicist interpretation of the transcendental project in Kant and Fichte, which thus finds a suitable successor in the neo-Kantian development of epistemology as a foundational philosophical discipline.