Fichte’s Vocation of Man

Written for a general audience during a period of intense controversy in the German philosophical community, J. G. Fichte's short book The Vocation of Man (1800) is both an introduction to and a defense of his philosophical system, and is one of the best-known contributions to German Idealism. This collection of new essays reflects a wide and instructive variety of philosophical and hermeneutic approaches, which combine to cast new light upon Fichte's familiar text. The contributors highlight some of the overlooked complexities and implications of The Vocation of Man and situate it firmly within the intellectual context within which it was originally written, relating it to the positions of Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Schlegel, Jacobi, and others. In addition, the essays relate the text to issues of contemporary concern such as the limits of language, the character of rational agency, the problem of evil, the relation of theoretical knowledge to practical belief, and the dialectic of judgment.

Key to Abbreviations Preface Introduction: The Checkered Reception of Fichte's The Vocation of Man Daniel Breazeale 1. "An Other and Better World": Fichte's The Vocation of Man as a Theological-Political Treatise Günter Zóller 2. Fichte's Philosophical Bildungsroman Benjamin Crowe 3. Bestimmung as Bildung: On Reading Fichte's Vocation of Man as a Bildungsroman Elizabeth Millán 4. Knowledge Teaches Us Nothing: The Vocation of Man as Textual Initiation Michael Steinberg 5. J. G. Fichte's Vocation of Man: An Effort to Communicate Yolanda Estes 6. "Interest": An Overlooked Protagonist in Book I of Fichte's Bestimmung des Menschen M. Jorge de Almeida Carvalho 7. The Dialectic of Judgment and The Vocation of Man Wayne Martin 8. The Traction of the World, or Fichte on Practical Reason and the Vocation of Man Tom Rockmore 9. Fichte's Conception of Infinity in the Bestimmung des Menschen David W. Wood 10. Intersubjectivity and the Communality of Our Final End in Fichte's Vocation of Man Kien-How Goh 11. Evil and Moral Responsibility in The Vocation of Man Jane Dryden 12. Jumping the Transcendental Shark: Fichte's "Argument of Belief" in Book III of Die Bestimmung des Menschen and the Transition from the Earlier to the Later Wissenschaftslehre Daniel Breazeale 13. Determination and Freedom in Kant and in Fichte's Bestimmung des Menschen Angelica Nuzzo 14. "There is in nature an original thinking power, just as there is an original formative power." On a Claim from Book One of The Vocation of Man Violetta L.Waibel 15. Erkenntnis and Interesse: Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism and Fichte's Vocation of Man Michael Vater 16. Faith and Knowledge and Vocation of Man: A Comparison between Hegel and Fichte Marco Ivaldo 17. The Vocation of Postmodern Man: Why Fichte Now? Again! Arnold Farr Index