SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

J. G. Fichte, Jeffrey Church, Anna Marisa Schön, Jeffrey Church, Anna Marisa Schön

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781438482187
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

The reception history of the French Revolution in France and England is well documented among Anglophone scholars; however, the debate over the Revolution in Germany is much less well known. Fichte's Contribution played an important role in this debate. Presented here for the first time in English, Fichte's work provides a distinctive synthesis of Locke's "possessive individualism, " Rousseau's general will, and Kant's moral philosophy. This eclectic blend results in an unusual rights theory that at times veers close to a form of anarchism. Written in 1792–93, just before Fichte moved to Jena to develop his philosophical system in a series of works—above all the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794—the Contribution provides invaluable insight into Fichte's early development. In addition, Fichte's work predates much of Kant's political philosophy, and can shed light on the rich dialogue in German political thought in the 1790s.

BOOK ONE

On Judging the Legitimacy
of a Revolution

Preface

[203]1 The French Revolution seems to me to be important for the whole of humanity. I am not referring to the political consequences that it had for both the country itself and the neighboring states, and that it arguably would not have had without the unsolicited interference and imprudent self-confidence of these states. All that is in itself much, but it is little against the disproportionately more important matter.

As long as human beings do not become wiser and more just, all their attempts to become happy are in vain. Escaping from the despot’s dungeon, they will murder themselves among each other with the ruins of their broken shackles. This would be too sad a lot, if their own misery or—if they are warned in time—others’ misery could not lead them to belated wisdom and justice.

Thus, all events in the world seem to me [to be] instructional portrayals, which the great educator of humanity sets up so that humanity may learn what it is in need of knowing. Not that it learns out of history—in all of world history we will never find anything that we have not first put inside it ourselves. But through the judgment of real events, humanity may develop more easily by itself what lies within it. And thus, the French Revolution seems to me a rich painting about the grand text, “human rights and human worth.”

The intention, however, is not that some few chosen ones know what is worth knowing, and that few among them act accordingly. The theory of man’s duties, rights, and aspirations after death is not the school’s trinket. The time must come where our nurses teach our minors2 to speak about the first two points [man’s duties and rights] according to the only true and accurate representations, because the scare word “that is wrong” is the only rod we need for [disciplining] them, and because these are [also] the first words that they utter. [204] May the school be content with the honorable custody of the weapons with which it defends this common good [the knowledge of man’s duties and rights] against all remote sophistries. The weapons can only arise in the school and can only be diffused by it. The results themselves are common, like air and light. Only by imparting them [the results], or rather by lifting the sad prejudices, which have thus far impeded the development of that truth suppressed in the soul but not [yet] exterminated, will the school’s own knowledge become truly clear, alive, and fruitful. As long as in the schools you talk about it with people of the trade according to the prescribed form, you will both be deceived precisely by this prescribed form, and if you only agree about the form, you present each other with some questions that may be exhausting for you to answer clearly. However, include the mother, seasoned by bearing and raising children, the warrior, who turned grey in danger, and the worthy countryman in your conversations about conscience, right and wrong, and your own concepts will gain in clarity, just as you clarify theirs.—Yet this is the least. What are these insights for, if they are not universally introduced into life? And how can they be introduced, if they are not shared by at least the greater half? It cannot remain the way it is now, for certainly some spark of divinity glows in our hearts that will point us to an almighty just being. Do we want to wait with the farmer until the stream that has broken free has torn away our huts? Do we want, amidst blood and corpses, to hold lectures about justice for the savage slave? Now is the time to acquaint the people with freedom, which it will find as soon as it knows it, so that the people may not seize injustice instead, falling back half its way and tearing us along. There are no means to protect [against] despotism. Maybe there are some means to coax the despot, who by inflicting evil upon us makes himself unhappier than us, to liberate himself from his long misery, to step down to us, and to become the first among equals. To prevent a violent revolution, there is a very reliable means, but it is the only one: to thoroughly teach the people about its rights and duties. To this end, the French Revolution offers us the instruction and the colors to enlighten the painting for stupid eyes; another, incomparably more important revolution, which I will not denote further here, has secured the material for us.3

The sign of the times has generally not gone unnoticed. Things have become the topic of the day, that were not [even] thought of before. [205] Conversations about human rights, about freedom and equality, about the holiness of contracts [and of] oaths, about the foundations and limits of a king’s rights are occasionally replacing the conversations about new fashions and old adventures in illustrious and lackluster circles. We are beginning to learn.

However, the painting on display does not serve merely for instruction. It turns at the same time into a strict test of heads and hearts. On the one hand, the aversion to all independent thought, the inertness of the mind and its inability to follow just a short series of conclusions, the prejudices and contradictions that have spread across all our fragments of opinions; on the other hand, the effort to not let anything be changed about one’s hitherto beloved existence, the lazy or destructive egoism, the shy timidity about the truth, or the violence with which one closes one’s eyes when they enlighten us against our will—[these] never reveal themselves more manifestly than where there is talk about such evident and universally applicable topics as human rights and human duties are.

There are no means against the latter evil. Whoever fears the truth as his enemy will always know how to protest against her. Were she to follow him through all the nooks in which the shade-lover hides, he would always find a new one in the abyss of his heart. Whoever does not want to court the heavenly beauty without all the accoutrements does not deserve her at all.—It is not our purpose to get a certain principle into your head because it is the principle, but because it is true. If its opposite were true, we would teach you the opposite, because it would be true, entirely unconcerned about its content or its consequences. As long as you do not educate yourself towards this love for truth because it is truth you are of no use to us at all, for it is the first preparation for the love of justice for her own sake; it [the love of truth] is the first step towards goodness of character—do not boast about it, if you have not taken this step.

Against the former evil, against prejudices and inertness of the mind, there is a means: instruction and amicable help. I would like to be a friend to him, who needs such a friend and has not a better one around. Therefore, I wrote these pages.

I have sketched the course that my examination will further take, partially in the introduction and partially in the second chapter. This first volume was only intended as a trial, and therefore I have put down my pen after the first half of the book.4 It depends on the public whether I will pick it back up and even finish this first book. [206] Meanwhile the French nation may wish to supply more abundant material for the second [book], which shall establish basic principles for the assessment of its constitution’s wisdom.

Should these pages fall into the hands of real scholars, they will easily see which basic principles I assumed; why I did not choose a strictly systematic course, but pursued my argument5 along a popular thread; why I never determined the propositions more sharply than required by the present occasion; why here and there I left more embellishment or fire in the presentation than would have been necessary for them; and that a strictly philosophical assessment will actually only be possible after completion of the first book. For the unlearned or partially learned reader, I additionally make a few, highly necessary remarks about the careful use of this book.*

Even if I have assured my readers throughout what I have said thus far that I believe what I wrote down to be true, I would not deserve their trust. I wrote with the tone of certainty because it is falseness to pretend that one was doubting where one does not doubt. I have thought carefully about everything that I wrote, and thus I had reasons not to doubt. Whence it follows that I am not talking without discretion and am not lying. However, it does not follow that I am not erring. That, I do not know. I only know that I did not want to err. Yet even if I did err, I am not depriving my reader of anything. For I would not want him to accept my claims [solely] upon my word, but rather that he should think about their objects with me. I would throw this manuscript into the fire—even if I knew for certain that it contained the purest truth, presented in the most precise manner—if I knew at the same time that no single reader would assure himself of this truth by means of his own reflections. That which is indeed truth for me, because I have convinced myself of it, would only be opinion, illusions, prejudice, for him because he would not have judged himself. Even a divine gospel is truth to no one, who has not assured himself of its truth. Now, if my errors instigated the reader to discover the pure truth himself, and disclose it to me, he and I would be sufficiently rewarded. Even if my errors did not do that, and they only became an exercise in independent thought for the reader, the advantage would already be great enough. [207] Actually, no writer, who knows and loves his duty, has the goal of bringing the reader to believe in his opinions, but only to examine them. All our teaching must be aimed at the awakening of independent thinking, or [otherwise] we deliver a very dangerous gift [hidden] inside our most beautiful gift of humanity. Thus, everybody may judge for himself, and if he errs—perhaps in common with me—I am sorry; but in that case, he may not say that I have led him astray, but rather that he erred on his own. I wanted to relieve no one of this work of independent thinking—a writer should think ahead of his readers, but not for them.

Thus, even if I did err, the reader would not at all be bound to err with me. However, I owe him also this warning, that he may not let me say more than I am really saying. He finds principles in the course of this book that will [have to] be determined more closely; since the book has not been completed and important chapters are not in his hands yet, he can likewise expect that the principles that have been defined so far will receive more detailed specification by means of their further application, and I ask him—if he wants—to practice the application through his own attempts.

The reader would err most gravely, however, if he wanted to rush to apply these basic principles to his conduct towards the hitherto existing states. That the constitution of most states is not only faulty, but also most unjust, and that inalienable human rights—which human beings may not actually allow to have taken away from them—are infringed upon therein, thereof I am indeed deeply convinced, and I have worked, and will work, to likewise convince the reader of it. Even so, for the time being nothing may be done against them [the states], but to give to them what we may not allow to have taken from us by force, since they themselves certainly do not know what they are doing. As for ourselves, we have first of all to acquire knowledge of, and then deep love for justice, and to spread both around us as far as our sphere of influence reaches. Worthiness for freedom must grow from the bottom up, [while] the liberation without disorder may only come from above.

“Even if we made ourselves worthy of freedom, the monarchs will still not set us free.”—Do not believe this, my reader. Until now, humanity is very far behind in what it truly needs, but unless I am very much mistaken, the time of breaking dawn is now, and the full day will follow it in due course. For the most part, your wise men are still blind leaders of a [even] blinder people—and your herdsmen should know more? They, who are largely raised in idleness and ignorance, or, if they do learn something, learn [only] a truth explicitly crafted for them. [208] They, who notoriously do not continue to work on their education, once they rule, who do not read a new pamphlet, but at most some watery sophistries, and who are all behind their time by at least the years of their reign? You may be certain that they lie down to rest peacefully after signing orders against freedom of thought and after battles, in which thousands wore themselves down, considering themselves to have spent a lordly day serving God and men. Talking does not help at all here, for who could scream loud enough to reach their ears and enter their hearts through their understanding? Only acting helps. Be just, you peoples, and your princes will not be able to endure to be unjust alone.

Only one more general remark, and then I will quietly leave the reader to his own contemplations!—My name does not concern the reader.6 For, in this case, things do not depend at all on the reliability or unreliability of the testimony, but on the importance or unimportance of the reasons, which the reader must weigh on his own. Yet to me it was very important to keep in mind the thought of my age and of posterity in composing this work. My basic rule as a writer is to never write anything down that would make me blush before myself, and the test, which I perform for that purpose, is the question: Could you will that your age, and if possible all of posterity, knows that you have written this? I have submitted the present pamphlet to this test, and it passed. I may have erred. As soon as I discover these errors, or someone shows them to me, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Translators’ Note
• Chronology
• Contribution to the Correction of the Public’s Judgments on the French Revolution
• Book One: On Judging the Legitimacy of a Revolution
• Afterword
• Appendix One Correspondence
• Appendix Two Review by Friedrich von Gentz
• Glossary
• Index
• Back Cover