Bildung as Standpoint. Philosophy of Religion as Philosophy of Culture in Fichte’s Middle Period

Abstract

Abstract – While Bildung, as Gadamer affirms, was in the 19^th century the element in which the sciences lived, there is traditionally no epistemological ground to justify its status. This leads to an aporia: Bildung as self-cultivation is meant to be an end in itself, yet must also provide for the unity of particular sciences and their separate goals. This paper sees a solution in Fichte’s middle period via the cultivation of Attention, allowing one simultaneously to stay within the realm of Bildung and conceive of the particulars that are its manifestations. Attention first appears in the Wissenschaftslehre (1804), where it is an existential mood and prerequisite for entering the system. Varying degrees of it then come to qualify the standpoints found in the Anweisung zum Seligen Leben (1806). Finally, in the life of the Anweisung’s Johannine Christ and the finished Scholar of the Über das Wesen des Gelehrten (1805), Fichte presents us with a model of Bildung grounded in Attention, one whose priorities are transmission and initiation.