Strange Bedfellows: A Re-Examination of the Work of J. G. Fichte In Light of the Levinasian Critique

Much has been made within certain philosophic circles of Emmanuel Levinas’s interaction with and critique of Western philosophy in general and German Idealism in particular. What is little recognized, however, is that J. G. Fichte is often the hidden target of this salvo. Indeed, Fichte appears within Levinas’s work as one of the major foils against whom he attempts to define his own insights. Whenexamined in light of Levinas’s attack, however, Fichte’s work actually appears to be in remarkable contiguity with Levinas. The aim of this paper is to illuminate these commonalities by making an apology for Fichte in light of Levinas’s criticism. The result of this examination is the revelation that the German Idealism of such thinkers as Fichte, rather than rivaling Levinas’s work, actually proves to be in many ways its ally and intellectual forerunner