This chapter deals with Fichte’s distinction between “formal” freedom and “material” freedom, on which hardly any interpretive consensus has been reached. The chapter argues that formal freedom is characteristic of the unconditioned, spontaneous activity of the I as such, that is, of the “pure I”: it underlies and makes possible both the freedom of conscious reflection and the freedom of practical willing and acting, including the freedom to determine not only the means toward one’s ends but also these ends themselves. The latter constitutes full material freedom. However, these two senses admit of different degrees, and Fichte himself is committed to the view that reaching full material freedom depends on a process of ongoing cultivation. In this process, the chapter argues, one achieves concrete material freedom of choice only by reflecting upon one’s own underlying formal freedom as an I.

By closely connecting “free” and “dutiful” action, Kant appeared to some of his contemporaries to have a serious problem with the imputability of immoral actions. K. L. Reinhold attempted to avoid this problem by introducing a sharp distinction between freedom of choice (Willkür) and practical reason (as expressed through Wille), such that any free action must involve a choice between “selfish” and “unselfish” drives. After Kant rejected Reinhold’s proposed distinction, Fichte defended it by introducing a new distinction between the original, purely “formal” freedom of every spontaneously self-positing I and the “material” freedom that every I strives to achieve. Whereas formal freedom concerns the choice of means to predetermined ends, material freedom determines the ends as well as the means of acting. Fichte provides a detailed account of how a formally free individual might acquire material freedom through a series of “reflections” upon formal freedom, at which point freedom of choice is supposed to coincide with the categorical demands of the moral law—and Willkür with Wille. Fichte’s distinction between kinds and degrees of freedom was introduced in order to resolve the conflict between Kant and Reinhold, but it raises new questions concerning how one might “freely” acquire material freedom.

I will begin by characterizing the task of philosophy as that of answering the following, familiar question: how can something objective ever become something subjective; how can a being for itself ever become something represented [vorgestellten]? No one will ever explain how this remarkable transformation takes place without finding a point where the objective and the subjective are not at all distinct from one another but are completely one and the same. Our system establishes just such a point and then proceeds from there. The point in question is “I-hood” [Ichheit], intelligence, reason – or whatever one wishes to call it.

This absolute identity of the subject and the object in the I can only be inferred; it cannot be demonstrated, so to speak, “immediately,” as a fact of actual consciousness. As soon as any actual consciousness occurs, even if it is only the consciousness of ourselves, the separation [between subject and object] ensues. I am conscious of myself only insofar as I distinguish myself, as the one who is conscious, from me, as the object of this consciousness. The entire mechanism of consciousness rests on the various aspects of this separation of what is subjective from what is objective, and, in turn, on the unification of the two [iv, 2].

The first way what is subjective and what is objective are unified, or viewed as harmonizing, is when I engage in cognition.

Fichte's life and works

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born on May 19, 1762 in Rammenau, Saxony (in the eastern part of today's Germany). He studied theology and law at Jena, Wittenberg and Leipzig without taking a degree (1784–1788) and served as a private tutor in several families in Saxony, Prussia and Switzerland (1784–1793). In 1790, upon studying Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788), he became an enthusiastic adherent and supporter of Kant's Critical philosophy. Indeed, when his first publication, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792) appeared anonymously, it was widely assumed to be a work by Kant himself. Kant publicly declared Fichte to be the author of the latter work and thereby launched Fichte's meteoric philosophical career. He was offered a professorship at the University of Jena, where he began teaching in the Summer Semester 1794. During his five years at Jena, Fichte's widely attended lectures and numerous publications exercised a tremendous influence on German philosophical and literary culture.

Fichte's major works from his Jena period are Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre (1794), Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (1794–1795), Foundation of Natural Right (1796–1797), Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (1797–1798), and The System of Ethics (1798). His lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796–1799), which are preserved only in student transcripts, are also central documents for any informed understanding of Fichte's early system.