Offense (philosophy)
The term crime was introduced into philosophy by Johann Gottlieb Fichte . With him it describes a first and not further reducible act of the ego, through which it sets itself as a reflective ego, which therefore forms the beginning of all knowledge and “is the basis of all consciousness”. Fichte expresses this in the formula: “I am simply, that is, I am simply because I am; and I am simply what I am ”. In the act of action, the ego "originally posits its own being".
In Fichte, the act of crime differs from a fact in that no object is posited in it; it is "pure activity, which does not presuppose an object, but produces it itself, and where accordingly action becomes an act". Fichte also describes the act as a “self-positing” of the (absolute) self. The absolute ego is pure subjectivity, disregarding any object reference. In everything that the ego does, the ego is always presupposed as an agent.
The knowledge of experience has no access to the absolute ego, but only to the personal ego. The absolute I is indeed present in consciousness, but not an object of experience, but its transcendental ground. There is therefore only an indirect knowledge of the absolute ego that can be inferred from action. This absolute I has no determinable properties, but is "pure I".
literature
- Bärbel Frischmann : From transcendental to early romantic idealism. JG Fichte and Ms. Schlegel. Paderborn, Munich [u. a.] 2005, ISBN 3-506-71704-9 , pp. 43-53
- Ulrich Dierse: Action , in: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 10, Basel and Darmstadt 2005, pp. 908–910
Remarks
Sigles
| GA | JG Fichte - Complete Edition, ed. by Reinhard Lauth et al., Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1964 ff. |
| SW | Fichte's works, Berlin 1971 (photomechanical reprint of: Johann Gottlieb Fichte's entire works, Berlin 1845/46, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte's posthumous works, Bonn 1834/35, edited by 1. H. Fichte) |