Abstract

The late Fichte transforms transcendental philosophy into ontology, without transcendental philosophy ceasing to be transcendental philosophy. The center of his philosophy is no longer the transcendental self, but rather concepts like existence, light, image, from which the transcendental self can be derived. Against dogmatism, for which being is to be considered as an absolute fact, Fichte tries to show that being can be deduced and explained from the light, and that means: from transcendental freedom. Whatever exists is made from the substance of appearance, from the substance of visibility and light, from the material of the image. But the appearance, the image, the light, can only derive their creative power from the fact that they are the existence of the Absolute. And precisely at this point, under the idea that only the Absolute is, Fichte has repeatedly to cope with the question of the relation between the being-character of this substance and the being-character of the Absolute. Against his reiterated attempts to proceed this way, the difference between being and existence can not so easily be traced back to the concept of an absolute Being, in whose inner essence lies the fact that nothingness becomes itself an ‘apparent something’, against the background of which, and by which, the Absolute cannot be, and cannot be understood, except as absolute.