IN Part Three of this series we examined how Fichte looked at the world in terms of “the Ego,” amid the claim that the consequences of Idealist spirituality are no different to those of the materialist who presents the external world in the context of a purely mental process. By associating the spirit with ideas, Steiner contends, it is impossible to study spirituality in a more deeper and tangible fashion, because it loses its independent status.

Fichte, as we saw in Part Five, is even accused of relinquishing his own personality in the process of rejecting the external world. As far as Steiner is concerned, when an object enters our field of vision it alters the perceiving subject and yet for Fichte the objective “percept” is made subjective and thus the world becomes nothing more than an idea.

Continuing with The Philosophy of Freedom‘s unique discussion of epistemology, or theory of knowledge, Steiner explains that by combining the “given” qualities of the external world with active thought the Ego discovers true reality in all its splendour:

For every other part of the world-content we must assume that the union of the two factors is original and necessary from the first, and that it is only for cognition, when cognition begins, that an artificial separation has supervened, but that cognition in the end undoes the separation in keeping with the original and essential unity of the object-world. For consciousness the case is quite otherwise. Here the union exists only when it is achieved by the living activity of consciousness itself. With every other kind of object, the separation of the two factors is significant, not for the object, but only for knowledge. Their union is here original, their separation derivative. (p.159)

Cognition divides in order to conquer, i.e. human consciousness initially separates the objects it perceives in the external world prior to our thought-processes actively comprehending the ultimate truth that lies behind them.

Turning now to Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre (1794), an early attempt to ground philosophy in epistemological principles, Steiner insists that by establishing a theory of consciousness as a general foundation for the sciences the German was effectively suggesting that knowledge is determined by the activity of the Ego within consciousness itself. Steiner, however, is of the opinion that Fichte ultimately fails to sufficiently develop this concept:

Fichte tries to determine the activity of the “Ego.” He declares “that the being, the essence of which consists solely in this that it posits itself as existing, is the Ego as absolute subject.” This positing of the Ego is for Fichte the original, unconditioned act “which lies at the basis of all the rest of consciousness.” It follows that the Ego, in Fichte’s sense, can likewise begin all its activity only through an absolute fiat of the will. But, it is impossible for Fichte to supply any sort of content for this activity which his “Ego” absolutely posits. For, Fichte can name nothing upon which this activity might direct itself, or by which it might be determined. His Ego is supposed to perform an act. Yes, but what is it to do? Fichte failed to define the concept of cognition which the Ego is to realise, and, in consequence, he struggled in vain to find any way of advancing from his absolute act to the detailed determinations of the Ego. (p.160)

If the theoretical aspects of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre sound vague, it is argued, then the practical considerations are little better and the philosopher is accused of destroying knowledge completely. If the Ego is to be free to the extent that it can engage in a cognitive process, Steiner tells us, it must act in a voluntary fashion and yet the most fundamental question of all does not involve what it means for the “Ego” to be free but what it can actually know.

Fichte is said to be more concerned with the discovery of the Ego than establishing a coherent theory of knowledge, but the fact remains that the “Ego” itself is part of the “given” – something preceding the cognitive process one finds in Steiner – and thus leads to confusion:

Taking it, then, as established that Fichte, in keeping with the whole trend of his philosophical thinking, could not, in fact, rest content with any other starting-point for knowledge than an absolute and arbitrary act, we have the choice between only two ways of making this start intelligible. The one way was to seize upon some one among the empirical activities of consciousness and to strip off, one by one, all the characteristics of it which do not follow originally from its essential nature, until the pure concept of the Ego had been crystallised out. The other way was to begin, straightaway, with the original activity of the Ego, and to exhibit its nature by introspection and reflection. Fichte followed the first way at the outset of his philosophical thinking, but in the course of it he gradually switched over to the other. (p.161)

As for Fichte’s assertion that the affirmation of the Ego rests on the notion that something has been determined (i.e. “if a exists, then there exists a”), Steiner agrees in the sense that without seizing upon some kind of content there would be no affirmation at all. However, this nonetheless demonstrates that the activity of Fichte’s Ego is based on what it receives from the “given” rather than arriving at a theory of knowledge by way of affirming the act of cognition. The fact that he fails to determine what the activity of the Ego involves means that the Ego becomes the very basis for the activity itself. Whilst Fichte merely tries to add concepts to that which is “given,” Steiner employs thought as the basis for comprehending the world-content in its entirely.

At the same time, whilst Fichte’s methodology results in a world that is constructed in accordance with the Ego, as an idea, it involves observing the Ego as it is engaged in the process of accumulating from nature the materials required to determine reality as it really is. By perceiving the foundations of the world, in other words, one gains a better understanding of how they develop into a more well-rounded picture. Similar, perhaps, in the way that if one watches an artist at work one will better appreciate the finished work. Fichte’s insight, or mediation, relies on the utilisation of what he terms the “inward sense-organ” that is unavailable to the “ordinary man”. Once again, Steiner finds fault with Fichte’s thesis and explains that

after it had once been recognised that the activity of the Ego must be affirmed by the Ego itself, it was very easy to think that the activity receives its determination also from the Ego. But how else can this happen except we assign a content to the purely formal activity of the Ego? If the Ego is really to import a content into its activity which, else, is wholly undetermined, then the nature of that content must also be determined. For, failing this, it could at best be realised only by some “thing-in-itself” in the Ego, of which the Ego would be the instrument, but not by the Ego itself. (p.164)

Conversely, Steiner contends that it is up to the Ego to facilitate cognition and that if we are to understand the authentic nature of consciousness then we must make the idea of consciousness our own. Without thought, he says, the Ego is incapable of determining that which is “given” and is lacking in content.

Fichte’s philosophy, as Steiner perceives it, is based on the concept that whatever is received from the external world is tantamount to reality. By way of contrast, the

true form of reality is not the first form in which it presents itself to the Ego, but the last form which it receives through the activity of the Ego. That first form is, in fact, without any importance for the objective world and counts only as the basis for the process of cognition. Hence, it is not the form given to the world by theory which is subjective, but rather the form in which the world is originally given to the Ego. If, following Volkelt and others, we call the given world “experience,” our view amounts to saying: The world-picture presents itself, owing to the constitution of our consciousness, in subjective form as experience, but science completes it and makes its true nature manifest. (p.166)

Despite his criticisms of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, the Austrian believes that once Idealist philosophy learns to “understand itself” it will have a much clearer grasp of the world. This, he suggests, will only happen once the Steinerian theory of knowledge that we encountered in Part Nineteen – i.e. philosophy that no longer has to rely on unsubstantiated presuppositions – is used as the basis for a more scientific approach.

By actively seeking to relate one object to another thorough cognition, thinking can become a working tool for the apprehension of reality.