Abstract

By offering an original reading of J. G. Fichte's central philosophic work, The Science of Knowledge , through the prism of his much over looked "Journal of Animal Magnetism" this dissertation situates Fichte's later metaphysics of the image within the concerns of contemporary media theory. It does so by taking seriously the political consequences of the historical transformation of the faculty of imagination in age of materialism. Such a reading is made possible by approaching German Idealism through the critical apparatus of 20th century Continental Philosophy . ;In the 19th century, Post-Kantian idealism's designation of the imagination as a faculty was called into question. For instance, with the appearance of Mesmerism and the rise of magnetic psychology, the very validity of the transcendental subject was rendered suspect. The subject's imagination was shown to be transparent to external influence. In his own search for a physical instantiation of idealism Fichte realized that the imagination and its power of imaging was no longer limited to the transcendental subject, but was shown to be a function of material technique. Such a transformation would have far reaching political consequences. Specifically, if Fichte articulated spirit---which defined social wholeness---in terms of the imagination, then the appropriation of the imagination by technological materialism demanded a fundamental rethinking of the communicative ground of the social