[Literature] Johann Gottlieb Fichte: The System of Ethics #2/193

Let us provisionally assume that the representation of my own efficacy includes the following: a

representation of the stuff[ Stoff] that endures while I am acting efficaciously and is absolutely

unchangeable thereby; a representation of the propertiesof this stuff, properties that are changed by my

efficacy; and a representation of this progressive process ofchange, which continues until the shape that I intend is there. And let us also assume that all these representations contained in the representation of

my efficacy are givento me from outside (an expression which, to be sure, I do not understand), i.e., that

this is a matter of experience, or however one may express this non-thought. Even if we make this assumption, there still remains something within the representation of my efficacy which simply cannot

come to me from outside but must lie within myself, something that I cannot experience and cannot

learn but must know immediately: namely, that I myselfam supposed to be the ultimate ground of the

change that has occurred.

“I am the ground of this change.” This means the same as, and nothing other than, the following: that

which knowsabout this change is also that which effectuates it; the subject of consciousness and the

principle of efficacy are one. But what I assert at the origin of all knowledge concerning the knowing

subject itself – what I know simply by virtue of the fact that I know anything whatsoever [IV, 4] – this is

not something I could have drawn from some other knowledge. I know it immediately; I purely and

simply posit it.

Accordingly, insofar as I know anything at all I know that I am active. Consciousness of myself, that is,

consciousness of myself as an active subject, is contained and thereby immediately posited in the mere

form of knowledge as such.

Now it might well be that this same mere form of knowledge also contains, if not immediately, then

mediated by the immediate knowledge just indicated, all of the remaining manifold that lies in the above-

mentioned representation of my efficacy. Should this prove to

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be the case, then we would rid ourselves of the awkward assumption that this manifold comes from

outside, and we could do this simply by virtue of the fact that we could explain this in another, more

natural way. By deriving the necessity of such an assumption immediately from the presupposition of

any consciousness whatsoever, we would answer the question raised above concerning how we come to

ascribe to ourselves efficacy in a sensible world outside of us.

We will endeavor to determine whether such a derivation is possible. The plan for this derivation is as

follows. We have just seen what is contained in the representation of our efficacy. The presupposition is

that this representation is contained in consciousness as such and is necessarily posited along with it.

Our point of departure is therefore the form of consciousness as such. We will derive things from this,

and our investigation will be concluded when the path of our derivations returns us to the representation

of our sensible efficacy.

5

I posit myself as active. According to what was said above, this means that I make a distinction within

myself between a knowing subject and a real force [ reelle Kraft], which, as such, does not knowbut is; and yet I view the two as absolutely one. How do I come to make this distinction? How do I arrive at

precisely this [IV, 5] determination of what is being distinguished? The second question is likely to be

answered by answering the first one.

I do not know without knowing something. I do not know anything about myself without becoming

something for myself through this knowledge – or, which is simply to say the same thing, without

separating something subjective in me from something objective. As soon as consciousness is posited,

this separation is posited; without the latter no consciousness whatsoever is possible. Through this very

separation, however, the relation of what is subjective and what is objective to each other is also

immediately posited. What is objective is supposed to subsist through itself, without any help from what

is subjective and independently of it. What is subjective is supposed to depend on what is objective and

to receive its material determination from it alone. Being exists on its own, but knowledge depends on

being: the two must appear to us in this way, just as surely as anything at all appears to us, as surely as

we possess consciousness.