F.H Jacobi and the gospel of transcendental idealism

The Fichte's response in the Bestimmung des Menschen (1800)

Abstract

The objective of this work is to analyze the discussion between J.G Fichte and F.H Jacobi during the so-called Atheismusstreit debate in which Fichte is accused of atheism and nihilism by Jacobi based in the fichtean difficulty to deduce the empirical world from the pure principle of his Wissenschaftslehre, the I, without breaking up the transcendental precepts of his doutrine. The inquiry will concentrate more carefully on the long Fichte’s response in the Bestimmung des Menschen (1800) where he tries to evidence the moral scope in his philosophy as a solution to the barrenness of the theoretical scope purity, that is, with the belief as an organ by which the call of the will is accepted and the world, now a moral world, is deduced. In this concept of belief lies an apparent similarity between the two philosophers, since which Jacobi also conceive a belief in his David Hume über den Glauben oder Idealismus und Realismus (1787). The fundamental difference is that in Fichte this belief follows a free deliberation by the agent, a belief in its rational nature itself, insofar in Jacobi it is a consequence of the miraculous revelation of the objectivity which comes from God, an absolute transcendence.