The Birth of Nihilism - German Idealism, Johann Fichte and Friedrich Jacobi

We begin our series on nihilism by discussing the "birth" of modern nihilism as a critique of Johann Fichte's absolute ego by Friedrich Jacobi. Fichte was a descendant of Kant's Transcendental Idealism who believed in the ultimate "Absolute Ego" which Friedrich Jacobi claimed led to the knowledge of nothing.

[ornature]

Read “The Fate of Reason” for a full context upon the pantheism controversy and its effects upon the enlightenment and sturm und drang (hamann, goethe, herder, etc), which is the bigger originator of nihilism. Beiser provides much more context. Nihilism is about the overextension of theoretical reason into solipsism and spinozism. The pantheism controversy is why kant got popular (he provided a middle way and limited rationalism into knowing nothing aka dogmatic rationalism) and also basically spawned german idealism and romanticism, thus bringing in fichte (originally a spinozist), schelling (blended spinozism into his philosophy), hegel, etc. Also that photo is not jacobi, its his relative.

[adrianarocha]

I am looking forward to the coming episodes in this series.

[GoodStarfish]

Interesting. Dealing in the metaphysical vs physical is a labor of determining each of our "present" definition's conditions.
Great discussion.

[VernCrisler]

Very good exposition of Fichte's Ego-philosophy and Jacobi's response. One thing that is missing, however, is Fichte's relation to Spinoza's pantheism, which I think helps explain Fichte more than the influence of Kant's philosophy. Three other issues:
a) Christianity does not "anthropomorphize" the so-called Absolute Ego. That vulgar misinterpretation of Christianity is the error of Feuerbach. Contrary to this view, God in Christianity is an absolute Person, not an unknowable Acting Ego.
b) Fichte put a lot of effort into relating his philosophy to the three laws of logic: identity, contradiction, and excluded middle. There is very little discussion of his views on logic in this lecture, despite its heavy use in Wissenschafstlahre.
c) Fossils: Fichte makes a distinction between the ego as subject and the ego as object. So, history is a matter of the ego as object, not as subject. The subject is more like Kant's transcendental unity of apperception, an ego that is part of a justificatory system rather than an empirical psychology or history.
Still, aside from a few misunderstandings, one of the better discussions of Fichte out there.

[alykathryn]

On the other hand, maybe having some understanding of Hume, Kant, Spinoza, and the ideas being responded by the thinkers you are attempting to explained would be helpful in not totally mischaracterizing them. Just a thought.

[AlessandroZir]

thanks! that was an interesting point to start to access the problem of nihilism;

[standardoperationsop]

I dont think he understood the hard problem of consciousness. How do you from neurons firing experience the color red there is no tv in your head. where is the information your neurons produce being processed? Its just information how is it being turned into thoughts, sounds, sensations, and taste that you experience without being processed by something?!?! Evolution doesnt have an explanation for that. Is there some type of field that interacts with the signal your brain sends and produces your conscious experience? But where did this field come from and why does it even exist? Which brings us right back to the metaphysical, why does anything exist at all? You did an amazing job simplifying fitche. I was banging my head into a wall trying to understand what his theory was saying in simplified English. Thank you!!!!

[wedas]

You guys are going a great job
Personally am interested in Hegel, material dialectics: i.e, Marxism, as well Taoism, Buddhism, & Sufism… I thought am the only hold such combination of interests ‼️

[MrAMDU]

I have never listened to such unqualified persons give a presentation on the topic of German idealism.
I don't know if this channel is picking these big topics for discussion because they are personally interested in them, and believe they've acquired enough insight & knowledge to accurately teach and inform others about them, or whether they just want to appear intelligent and "big-brained", and they know most normies understand so little about these topics themselves that they can get away with saying just about whatever they want with very little risk of being called out? My initial impression is leaning towards the latter but I will give them another few minutes before I have to turn this off.

[justfeelingirie]

I can't wait for more deep dives into Hegel and any modern responses to German Idealism.

[matthiasmuller]

"The kingdom of God which happens to look a lot like the kingdoms which where around at the time"
Might be the most uninformed statement I have ever heard in my entire life 🏆👏

[martinwalter]

Cave! There are many missconceptions within the podcast. Jacobi's and Fichte's dispute is not the birth of nihilims. In fact, it marks a certain end of a dispute, on going from 1781. The term "nihilism" appears in the text of many other authors. Jacobi just adopted it. The interlocutors assure you with cocky self-asurance what the timeline of nihilism is.

[girlswithgames]

Even though i understand the criticism regarding "heaven as a place very similar to earthly kingdoms", i think it's a bit unfair. When describing the physical manifestation of something like "the kingdom of heaven" you can see it as concepts to communicate. An gate for example, is used to convey an idea/concept, namely, an entrance. It manifests in front of eyes as a gate, but that's only the physical symbol of an idea. In another era or culture another manifestation can be used. This is also why in different religions a same entity can have a different shape or description.

The reason i bring this up is because you can throw the same criticism towards something like an "all knowing and unknowable ego". This clearly is not the same as a "normal ego" yet that is used as starting point to convey an idea. There is nothing wrong with that i think. It's simple a mechanism of language and communication.