Abstract

In his theoretical philosophy, Immanuel Kant argues that experience comes from two sources that are radically different but equally necessary: the rule-governed activity of thinking and the givenness of sensations. He supposes that both could be traced to some common root but concludes that whatever it is, is in principle unknowable. Kant's idealist successors, J.G. Fichte and F.W.J. Schelling, each attempt to provide a unified account of experience by identifying the ultimate basis of subject and object—Fichte by referring to the I's activity and Schelling by referring to the Absolute. Because we can know only appearances, an implication of Kant's transcendental inquiry, Fichte and Schelling have difficulty...