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Fichte’s Logical Legacy: Thetic Judgment from the Wissenschaftslehre to Brentano

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Fichte and the Phenomenological Tradition
This chapter is in the book Fichte and the Phenomenological Tradition
12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940Fichte’s Logical Legacy:Thetic Judgment from theWissenschaftslehreto BrentanoWayne M. MartinUniversity of EssexIt is not usual to think of Fichte as a logician, nor indeed to think of himas leaving a legacy that shaped the subsequent history of symbolic logic.But I argue here that there is such a legacy, and that Fichte formulated anagenda in formal logic that his students (and their students in turn) usedto spark a logical revolution. That revolution arguably reached its culmi-nation in the logical writings of Franz Brentano, better known as afounding figure of the phenomenological movement. In logical writingsthat were published only posthumously, but that were fully elaborated inthe decade prior to the publication of Frege’sBegriffschrift, Brentano (to-gether with his collaborator Anton Marty) developed a radically innova-tive logical calculus that was explicitly designed to overthrow the ortho-dox logical analysis of judgment and inference. At the center of this rev-olution was the notion of thetic judgment [thetische Urteil], a form ofjudgment upon which Fichte had insisted in the first published versionof theWissenschaftslehre, and which his students subsequently set outto accommodate within the framework provided by Kant’s generallogic. But thetic judgment proved resistant to such assimilation, and itwas left to Brentano to use the analysis of thetic judgment in his attemptto topple a long-standing logical tradition.In what follows I reconstruct the main episodes in this century-longdrama in the logical theory of judgment. My discussion is divided intofour sections. I begin with a review of Fichte’s most explicit call for logicalrevolution, together with his introduction of the notion of thetic judg-ment, set against the backdrop of an anomaly within Kant’s logical com-mitments. In the second section I trace the logical treatment of thisanomaly among Fichte’s philosophical progeny, in particular Johann Frie-drich Herbart and Moritz Drobisch. The third section explores Brenta-no’s position, and his more radical solution to the anomaly bequeathed

12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940Fichte’s Logical Legacy:Thetic Judgment from theWissenschaftslehreto BrentanoWayne M. MartinUniversity of EssexIt is not usual to think of Fichte as a logician, nor indeed to think of himas leaving a legacy that shaped the subsequent history of symbolic logic.But I argue here that there is such a legacy, and that Fichte formulated anagenda in formal logic that his students (and their students in turn) usedto spark a logical revolution. That revolution arguably reached its culmi-nation in the logical writings of Franz Brentano, better known as afounding figure of the phenomenological movement. In logical writingsthat were published only posthumously, but that were fully elaborated inthe decade prior to the publication of Frege’sBegriffschrift, Brentano (to-gether with his collaborator Anton Marty) developed a radically innova-tive logical calculus that was explicitly designed to overthrow the ortho-dox logical analysis of judgment and inference. At the center of this rev-olution was the notion of thetic judgment [thetische Urteil], a form ofjudgment upon which Fichte had insisted in the first published versionof theWissenschaftslehre, and which his students subsequently set outto accommodate within the framework provided by Kant’s generallogic. But thetic judgment proved resistant to such assimilation, and itwas left to Brentano to use the analysis of thetic judgment in his attemptto topple a long-standing logical tradition.In what follows I reconstruct the main episodes in this century-longdrama in the logical theory of judgment. My discussion is divided intofour sections. I begin with a review of Fichte’s most explicit call for logicalrevolution, together with his introduction of the notion of thetic judg-ment, set against the backdrop of an anomaly within Kant’s logical com-mitments. In the second section I trace the logical treatment of thisanomaly among Fichte’s philosophical progeny, in particular Johann Frie-drich Herbart and Moritz Drobisch. The third section explores Brenta-no’s position, and his more radical solution to the anomaly bequeathed

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents VII
  3. List of Abbreviations XI
  4. Introduction 1
  5. I. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre as a Phenomenology
  6. On Fichte and Phenomenology 11
  7. The Concept of Phenomenology in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre of 1804/II 25
  8. Reduction or Revelation? Fichte and the Question of Phenomenology. 41
  9. Fichte’s Phenomenology of Religious Consciousness 57
  10. Fichte and Brentano: Idealism from an Empirical Standpoint and Phenomenology from an Idealist Standpoint 71
  11. II. Fichte and Husserl
  12. Phenomenologies of Intersubjectivity: Fichte between Hegel and Husserl 97
  13. Tendency, Drive, Objectiveness. The Fichtean Doctrine and the Husserlian Perspective 119
  14. Life-World, Philosophy and the Other: Husserl and Fichte 141
  15. Self-Consciousness and Temporality: Fichte and Husserl 167
  16. Body and Intersubjectivity: The Doctrine of Science and Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations 191
  17. III. Fichte and Heidegger
  18. Martin Heidegger Reads Fichte 207
  19. Fichte, Heidegger and the Concept of Facticity 223
  20. Overcoming the Priority of the Subject: Fichte and Heidegger on Indeterminate Feeling and the Horizon of World and Self-Knowledge 261
  21. IV. Fichte, Sartre and Others
  22. How to Make an Existentialist? In Search of a Shortcut from Fichte to Sartre 277
  23. Consciousness. A Comparison between Fichte and the Young Sartre in a Bio-Political Perspective 313
  24. Fichte and Levinas. The Theory of Meaning and the Advent of the Infinite 327
  25. The Other and the Necessary Conditions of the Self in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre and Paul Ricoeur’s Phenomenology of the Will 341
  26. Does the Methodology of Phenomenology Involve Dual Intentionality? Some Remarks on Conceptions of Phenomenology in Husserl, Fichte, Hegel, Sartre and Freud 357
  27. Fichte’s Logical Legacy: Thetic Judgment from the Wissenschaftslehre to Brentano 379
  28. Backmatter 407
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110245288.4.379

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents VII
  3. List of Abbreviations XI
  4. Introduction 1
  5. I. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre as a Phenomenology
  6. On Fichte and Phenomenology 11
  7. The Concept of Phenomenology in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre of 1804/II 25
  8. Reduction or Revelation? Fichte and the Question of Phenomenology. 41
  9. Fichte’s Phenomenology of Religious Consciousness 57
  10. Fichte and Brentano: Idealism from an Empirical Standpoint and Phenomenology from an Idealist Standpoint 71
  11. II. Fichte and Husserl
  12. Phenomenologies of Intersubjectivity: Fichte between Hegel and Husserl 97
  13. Tendency, Drive, Objectiveness. The Fichtean Doctrine and the Husserlian Perspective 119
  14. Life-World, Philosophy and the Other: Husserl and Fichte 141
  15. Self-Consciousness and Temporality: Fichte and Husserl 167
  16. Body and Intersubjectivity: The Doctrine of Science and Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations 191
  17. III. Fichte and Heidegger
  18. Martin Heidegger Reads Fichte 207
  19. Fichte, Heidegger and the Concept of Facticity 223
  20. Overcoming the Priority of the Subject: Fichte and Heidegger on Indeterminate Feeling and the Horizon of World and Self-Knowledge 261
  21. IV. Fichte, Sartre and Others
  22. How to Make an Existentialist? In Search of a Shortcut from Fichte to Sartre 277
  23. Consciousness. A Comparison between Fichte and the Young Sartre in a Bio-Political Perspective 313
  24. Fichte and Levinas. The Theory of Meaning and the Advent of the Infinite 327
  25. The Other and the Necessary Conditions of the Self in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre and Paul Ricoeur’s Phenomenology of the Will 341
  26. Does the Methodology of Phenomenology Involve Dual Intentionality? Some Remarks on Conceptions of Phenomenology in Husserl, Fichte, Hegel, Sartre and Freud 357
  27. Fichte’s Logical Legacy: Thetic Judgment from the Wissenschaftslehre to Brentano 379
  28. Backmatter 407
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