Reciprocal Recognition in Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right

Fichte presents an epistemological problem with the idea of other wills wherein Fichte asks how do we know of the existence of other wills? This epistemological problem is a direct challenge to Kant as Fichte argues that the formulas Kant gives us, including the categorical imperative, will be useless in practice when we don’t know which of those things we encounter in the world are rational beings such that we have to treat them as ends in themselves. Not only does Kant not answer the question of how we can know there are other wills and how we can identify those rational beings, it would appear to Fichte that Kant’s system does not have any space for an answer to this question at all because in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that we can never know the actuality of freedom by experience. In Section Three of the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that this is not a practical problem because in the perspective of deliberating about what I should do morally speaking, I have to assume that I am free and by this same token take others to be free as well. However, this still does not tell me which of these objects I see is one of those rational beings because what I see belongs to the sensible world where Kant says freedom will not come up. The second problem Fichte has with other wills is the normative problem wherein, in contrast to Kant, Fichte does not think we can use common moral cognition as a starting point because general opinion is often obviously false. Finally, Fichte thinks there is a metaphysical problem about the actuality of my freedom. This problem draws out a crucial distinction between Kant and Fichte in their treatment of autonomous or free action. In Section Three of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that since I do not know my freedom in the perspective of theoretical reason, the way I understand my own freedom, in the perspective of the cognition of what is or what is actually taking place, is in the perspective of practical reason that makes judgements not about what is, but about what ought to be. What I therein know and must at all times take to be the case is that I have the power of freedom or the power of free will. To Kant, the thought of freedom enters through the idea of a kind of power or ability not through a thought about what actually happens. In Kant, I understand myself as free through my capacity to act from duty, not through any action. Fichte, however, is an actualist about autonomous or free action in that he holds that taking oneself as free requires more than just the idea of one’s capacity or something that it is in one’s power to do. Rather we only understand freedom not through the power, but through the act. Furthermore, Fichte argues that we can understand that we have the power only by understanding it through our activity. For Fichte, if I am to find myself as free, it won’t be enough to appeal to capacity. Something else is required. Fichte argues that an object in experience must correspond to the concept of freedom in order for me to find myself as free. For Fichte, we won’t understand freedom unless we can understand it in the perspective also of experience, but this is the very thing Kant says is impossible. 

Fichte argues that we don’t understand anything about freedom or about what ought to be done unless we understand how freedom is embodied. Fichte thinks that the two questions, the normative one of what is okay to do to another rational being and the epistemological question of how do I in the first place come to know that something is a rational being, can only be solved together with this metaphysical puzzle about how the actuality of my freedom can be understood through a kind of activity. Neither my body or your body, that is the existence of other wills, is something that could be found or immediately present in pure self consciousness, but pure self consciousness is the level on which the Groundwork is situated. Fichte says I know freedom only through action. The concept of freedom, if we only think about it in terms of a capacity for efficacy, is empty and ultimately unintelligible. What we need is the actuality that can also be something that I encounter in the world and is in this sense an object.

Despite all these problems and challenges that Fichte levels against Kant, Fichte claims to continue the Kantean project and even to complete it. In contrast to Kant who deliberately separates these two realms, Fichte aims to unify the theoretical and the practical: the knowledge of what is and the knowledge of what ought to be. They are essentially one because the whole consideration starts from thinking in order to have self consciousness at all, I need to think of myself as a practical agent, as someone who acts in the world. Fichte takes the true Kantean method to be a transcendental reflection on the conditions of possibility. Namely the conditions on the possibility of being a thinking being that is, in Fichte’s terms, being self conscious. The great Fichtean insight is that there is no self consciousness for any individual without standing in relation to another actual individual. This relation is one of reciprocal recognition. The Fichtean move is his claim that if we understand this dependence of self consciousness, which is the starting point of all philosophy, on standing in a certain relation to another self consciousness, then we understand that we must reciprocally treat each other as free. Fichte’s project aims to start by examining the necessary conditions for the possibility of self consciousness and from there, deduce a proof a priori or transcendentally that there must be other rational beings out there and that I stand in a specific kind of reciprocal relationship to them wherein I must treat them as free. In Fichte’s Deduction of the Concept of Right, he will argue that self consciousness is only possible if there is another self consciousness and once we understand that thought, we already have the principle of right: the principle that we all must leave room for other’s freedom.

In the Deduction of the Concept of Right, Fichte uses a transcendental method where, from the premise of self consciousness, the I is I, he moves to his conclusions in a dialectical way. This is dialectic because in thinking about what these necessary conditions are, Fichte encounters contradictions, thinks about how he can overcome these contradictions, and continues this way until there are no longer any contradictions. Fichte begins his deduction with two premises. The first premise is the idea of self consciousness, that the I is I. That is, I can be conscious of myself only if I am both the object of thinking and the subject of this thought. The second premise is the idea of our finitude. That is the identity of the object and the subject in thinking, which Fichte calls the self positing, must still be limited somehow by something different from ourselves, what Fichte calls the not-I. Together, the premises lead to the first contradiction which is that the object of self consciousness is supposed to be both just its own act of thinking and simultaneously limited by something that is not itself. Given the identity of object and subject in thinking here, what Fichte calls the self positing, it seems like we cannot be looking at something that is just our act of intuiting the world. If it was the act of intuiting the world then we would have to presuppose that we are already conscious of our own activity in intuiting this world. In order to ascribe the thought of a room full of people, I’d need to first be aware of myself as the subject that is intuiting the world. Intuiting the world therefore can’t be this object that is both its own act and also limited by something else. The hallmark of intuiting the world is that it’s passive. Fichte’s solution to this contradiction or the first resolution is to not think not about intuiting the world, a passive activity, but to think about something that would be active like our efficacy. This leads us to the first theorem: “A finite rational being cannot posit itself without ascribing a free efficacy to itself” (Fichte, 18). 

The first theorem leads to a second contradiction which is that the first resolution of free efficacy appears to create an infinite regress, what Fichte calls a vicious circle, because once you start thinking about what can be efficacious in the world, you have to presuppose that there is a world onto which we are efficacious. The first resolution tells us that our cognition of the object presupposes our efficacy, but it would appear also that our efficacy presupposes the object. This is a problem because it seems like the intelligibility of both intuiting the world out there and the idea of an efficacy that is directed towards the world presuppose each other. The consciousness I have of myself as a practical agent presupposes a consciousness of the world outside of me onto which I can act. Also, the consciousness of my intuiting the world presupposes myself as an active thinking subject. 

Fichte’s dialectical solution to the second contradiction is what he calls The Summons. In this deduction, Fichte is looking for an object that could be comprehended without resulting in the previous infinite regress. This object would have to be both representing our own efficacy and it would have to be out there in the world. In other words, this object would have to synthetically unify, that is represent as unified, both the subject’s own efficacy as a free agent as well as constitute an actual object out in the world. Fichte’s answer is that our own free efficacy and the limitation are both completely unified if we think of the subject’s being determined as it’s being determined to be self-determining. That is, as a summons, to the subject calling upon to resolve to exercise its efficacy. The consequence of this resolution is the second theorem: “The finite rational being cannot ascribe to itself a free efficacy in the sensible world without also ascribing such efficacy to others, and thus without also presupposing the existence of other finite rational beings outside of itself” (Fichte, 29). If we are to comprehend his form of address, the summons, then we need to understand that we are being asked to act and therefore in summoning someone, I need to understand that they can be summoned. This external being that must be posited as the cause of the summons must at least presuppose the possibility that this subject is capable of comprehending. 

The second theorem leads to a third contradiction. The third contradiction is that my self consciousness seems to presuppose the summons, but Fichte is trying to understand self consciousness which he said is self-positing. Self-positing can’t be passive or an accident. It seems that, in the summons, I am dependent on someone else when really I am supposed to be independent. This is a problem because the second theorem tells us that my self-consciousness presupposes the address, but the address appears to presuppose my ability to be summoned and to act which is to presuppose my free rationality. In comprehending the summons I must comprehend both my own and the other’s efficacy. Fichte resolves this contradiction by examining what the summons would have to look like. There is a sense in which the other person, by influencing me, exercises their efficacy and in exercising their efficacy, I came to recognize my own efficacy. What this means is that I ascribe to each of us a sphere of influence to act on the world and these spheres of agency can come into contradiction. So, in this exercise of a summons, this other person could exercise their efficacy in such a way as to deprive me of the ability to exercise my efficacy, but by addressing me, they limit their own efficacy and leave room for me to exercise my efficacy and even ask or demand it. My own recognition of the summons is only possible if the other treats me as a rational being. That is by acting in a way that remains within their sphere of agency. And the other’s recognition of my rationality is only possible if I act in a way that remains within my sphere of agency. Fichte’s resolution to the third contradiction is that there must be a mutual recognition of both of us as rational beings. However, insofar as we want to be individuals, it seems like this freedom that we now ascribe to ourselves, if this is a characteristic of our being, should be a characteristic of our being at all times. For this reason, Fichte adds the step of universalization. It’s not just supposed to be one moment in which we recognize someone else and they recognize us. I must conclude that I have to recognize the other and they have to recognize me at all times and in all possible interactions. If I must think of myself as continuously free, both now and in the future, then it seems like this will cover all instances where I encounter someone else, whoever that may be. The consequence of this resolution is that I can expect a particular rational being to recognize me as a rational being only if I, myself, treat him as one. There is this element of an expectation added on both sides of mutual recognition and this is what Fichte calls the relation of right. This is the very thing Fichte thought he could deduce. Not just that there are other rational beings out there, but that we stand with them in a very specific relationship: this relationship in which we interpret our interaction as occurring within these reciprocal spheres of agency. This requirement of treating each other as free is the principle of right. All of this leads us to the third theorem: “The finite rational being cannot assume the existence of other finite rational beings outside it without positing itself as standing with those beings in a particular relation, called a relation of right” (Fichte, 39).

When Fichte says that the concept of a thinking individual or person is a “reciprocal concept” he means that it’s impossible for me to have self consciousness or to have any thought for that matter without actually standing in a relation to some other existing thinker. Whereas all of Kant’s reflections in the Groundwork were all about how I have to conceive myself in light of the moral law. For Kant, it was not essential for any step in the reflection whether or not there are any other subjects. Therefore, all of the rational beings that enter in Kant, enter on that level of reflection, just as possible subjects, not as actual ones that we encounter. According to Fichte, however, I cannot think I am a person without there being someone who thinks of me as a person and who I in the same act think of as a person. This is what Fichte has hoped to show in the deduction of the deduction of the concept of right. Fichte thinks that whenever I get to a condition for the possibility of self consciousness, I am thereby entitled as a philosopher to say what the self consciousness must posit is objectively valid. What Fichte has shown in the deduction is that mutual recognition is required for my self consciousness. That is, I must stand in a relation, specifically the relation of right, to another actual individual in order to be self-conscious and this mutual recognition and the existence of other rational beings are therefore objectively valid. Our self consciousness is reciprocal in that it is for Fichte like a tango: it takes two. Just as we need to be tangoing towards another person in order to be tangoing at all, we need to be thinking person to another person for anyone to think of themselves as a person and it must go the other way as well. I must recognize you as a rational actor and you must simultaneously recognize me as a rational actor in order for either of us to have self-consciousness. While Fichte tells us that there are certain thoughts that I can only think if someone else thinks the same thought as me, there are, however, other concepts which are not reciprocal. For example, I can cognize and think an object that I see, like the book on my desk, without the need for anyone else to see it too. 

While Fichte’s deduction powerfully suggests the idea of self consciousness as a reciprocal concept in order to argue for the idea that we must treat each other as free or the principle of right, it leaves an unanswered normative question about what it means that we “must” treat each other as free. Morality, as Kant says, is all about the question of right motivation. For Kant, I cannot simply act in accord with duty but I must act from duty. The philosophy of right, according to Fichte, only cares if you act in accord with the law, just as the legal system doesn’t actually care if you act because of the law as long as you don’t break the law. Fichte is adamant that the philosophy of right is separate from morality, so it remains unclear in which sense we must treat each other as free. While Fichte bases his argument around the necessary conditions of self consciousness, it appears illogical to claim that if we do not treat others as free, we would cease to exist. It is in this sense, that his final conclusion appears incomplete and he has not fully resolved the problems he identifies and successfully unified the theoretical and the practical. Nevertheless, Fichte provides great insights into an alternative way of transcendentally exploring the possibility of self consciousness.