Foundations of the Science of Knowledge (1794-1795)

Foundations of the Science of Knowledge is a 1794/1795 book based on lectures Fichte had delivered as a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Jena, it was later reworked in various versions. The standard Wissenschaftslehre was published in 1804, but other versions appeared posthumously.

During this period Fichte composed several introductions to his new system and introduced his students to philosophy by exposing them to a skeptical critique of other systems and by trying to inspire them with the practical results of his system. Some central teachings of the Wissenschaftslehre include: a commitment to a foundationalist model of philosophy, beginning with the free self-positing of the I; a recognition of the necessary finitude of the I; a recognition of the necessary embodiment of consciousness; an emphasis upon the division between the pure and finite I and the striving that this produces; and an insistence that we can never escape “the circle of consciousness” nor abstract from the I (i.e., an affirmation of “subjective idealism”)