Fichte: Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation

by Translated by Garrett Green , Allen Wood

• ISBN13: 9780521112796
• ISBN10: 0521112796
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-01-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792) was the first published work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), the founder of the German idealist movement in philosophy. It predated the system of philosophy which Fichte developed during his years in Jena, and for that reason - and possibly also because of its religious orientation - later commentators have tended to overlook the work in their treatments of Fichte's philosophy. It is, however, already representative of the most interesting aspects of Fichte's thought. It displays an affinity with his later moral psychology, introduces (in theological form) Fichte's distinctively 'second-person' conception of moral requirements, and employs the 'synthetic method' which is crucial to the transcendental systems Fichte developed during his Jena period. This volume offers a clear and accessible translation of the work by Garrett Green, while an introduction by Allen Wood sets the work in its historical and philosophical contexts.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chronology

Further reading

Note on the text and translation

Dedication

Preface to the first edition

Preface to the second edition

Introduction

Theory of the will in preparation for a deduction of religion in general

Deduction of religion in general

Division of religion in general into natural and revealed

Formal discussion of the concept of revelation in preparation for a material discussion of it

Material discussion of the concept of revelation in preparation for a deduction of it

Deduction of the concept of revelation from a priori principles of pure reason

The possibility of the empirical datum presupposed in the concept of revelation

The physical possibility of a revelation

Criteria of the divinity of a revelation with regard to its possible content

Criteria of the divinity of a revelation with regard to the possible presentation of this content

Systematic order of these criteria

The possibility of receiving a given appearance as divine revelation

General overview of this critique

Concluding remark

Appendix: passages omitted in the second edition

Glossary

Index

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