Especulation and politics: continuity and discontinuity in Fichte´s work

• Grant number: 09/08099-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2009
• End date: July 31, 2010
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Ricardo Ribeiro Terra
• Grantee: João Geraldo Martins da Cunha
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims at analysing and comparing some of Fichte's texts, in regard to the general hermeneutical problem that has ever since divided his interpreters about the "continuity" or "discontinuity" of his philosophy throughout his productive years. With no intention of solving this difficult and extensive question through a general and systematic interpretation of his works, my investigation limits itself to pointing out an interpretation key that cannot be disconsidered in a reflection about the problem of the difference and relation between speculative philosophy and political analysis throughout Fichte's intellectual career. On the speculative plan, the fundamental issue is to know how far the analyses of the faculty of imagination from the 1794 Grundlage will be kept in the doctrine of image in his Berlin years; on the political plan, the great issue is to think if the support of freedom in the Considerations on French Revolution is compatible with his political positions after the napoleonic invasions. From this point of view, I intend to compare some of Fichte's texts - with no exhaustive pretension - under a double relation: (I) the synchronic relation between political analysis and speculative philosophy in two different moments of Fichte's career; (II) the diachronic relation between the different political texts, on the one side, and the different speculative expositions, on the other. (AU)