課程簡介Course Description

Fichte's Foundation of the Entire Doctrine of Science (Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, 1794/95) is arguably one of the most difficult texts in the history of post-Kantian philosophy. While Fichte has developed over a dozen versions of his transcendental philosophy known as the Wissenschaftslehre, the Foundation remains the only version that was published during his lifetime. This text is an important historical document that marks one of the earliest attempts to improve Kant's transcendental philosophy and left an unnegligible influence on the subsequent development of German Romanticism and Idealism. Despite its historical significance, interpreting this work has been a daunting challenge, especially for readers who has little or no background training in the tradition of classical German philosophy. Daniel Breazeale (1945-2023), an American philosopher whose work on Fichte contributed to the Fichte renaissance in the Anglophone world, left us with a new translation of Fichte's Foundation (2020) and other related early writings, with a masterful introduction and a set of valuable interpretive notes. With the help of Breazeale's latest translation, this postgraduate course will closely study Fichte's text, shedding light on an original approach of transcendental idealism.