Armin G. Wildfeuer: Praktische Vernunft und System

This study attempts to describe J. G. Fichtes original reception of Kant which resulted from pre-Kantian philosophy, in particular from the examination of the dilemma of determinism, and its significance for the creation of the ›Wissenschaftslehre‹ (Doctrine of Science). It was mainly Fichte’s preoccupation with the ›System der Notwendigkeit‹ (System of Necessity), developed by Karl Ferdinand Hommel (1722– 1781), a criminal law theoretician from Leipzig motivated by natural law, which played a key role this. This was due to the fact that Hommel’s determinism, in particular its basic assumption resulting from the theory of capability, namely the interpretation of reason as a mere epiphenomenon of natural causality and the assertion of a constitutive primacy of the mind over the will, can be interpreted as a counter-matrix to Fichte’s ›System der Freiheit‹ (System of Freedom), in which the basic prerequisites of a theory of capability are reversed. Fichte’s endeavors to systematically reconstruct the unity of reason in Kantian transcendental philosophy becomes clearer against this backdrop.