The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Newcomb Livraria Press

About this ebook

A new translation directly from the original manuscript of Hegel's 1801 commentary on his contemporaries Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, both of whom were Kantian philosophers he knew personally. This edition contains an extensive afterword on Hegelian philosophy and a timeline of his life and works. First published in 1801 by the academic published Jena, "The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems" (original German "Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie"). He contends that while Fichte's philosophy is centered on subjective idealism and the self-conscious "I," Schelling's system focuses on the absolute, which transcends subjectivity and objectivity. Hegel's analysis in this work lays the groundwork for his own philosophical development, as he seeks to reconcile and transcend the limitations he identifies in both Fichte and Schelling's approaches.

About the author

One of the most influential philosophers of all time, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) emerged as one of the most influential figures in German Idealism and Western philosophy. Born on August 27, 1770, in Stuttgart, Hegel's thinking was shaped early on by the events of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. His academic journey began in Tübingen, where he studied philosophy and theology and formed friendships with future prominent German intellectuals like Friedrich Hölderlin and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. His notion that history progresses through conflicts and resolutions shaped Karl Marx's theories of societal development, while his concept of the master-slave dialectic has been foundational in critical theory and studies of power and recognition.