Fichte and Levinas. The Theory of Meaning and the Advent of the Infinite.

Isabelle Thomas-Fogiel
Universit de Paris 1, Panthon-Sorbonne
Universit de Montreal

Many are the points of contact or the comparable elements in Fichte's

philosophy and today's phenomenology. Most notable among them is that Fichte
was the first to use the word "phenomenology" in a positive sense. Indeed,
Lambert, who first introduced this word into philosophical discourse in 1764
defined phenomenology as the science of illusions and considered it as strictly
preparatory to the unveiling of truth. This is the meaning retained by Kant when,
in his letter to Lambert written in 17701, he toyed with the idea of calling
"Phenomenology" the Critique of Pure Reason that was then yet in the making.
This negative sense has even left its trace in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit,
since this text presents itself as an account of the illusions of conscience. Fichte
alone differs from these authors and defines phenomenology positively as the
science of the appearing (Erscheinungslehre). The Appearing (Erscheinen)
never is the mere appearance of illusion (Schein). The phenomenon is not "fake"
but the truth; it is this appearance beyond which nothing is conceivable
whether it be a thing in itself, a deeper world, or transcendence. Fichte
philosophy as phenomenology, which completes the theory of truth in its
strictest sense, was conceived of as early as the 1804 Wissenschaftslehre (WL),
as a "return" to the appearing, in other words as a description of the field of the
1

To Lambert, 2 september 1770 : il semble quune science toute particulire quoique seulement ngative
(phnomenologia generalis) doive prcder la mtaphysique Correspondance, French translation :. Paris,
Gallimard, 1986, p.70-71

appearing. In this respect, one may assert that the criticism Husserl aims at
Descartes in his Cartesian Meditations 2that Descartes doesn't

cross the

threshold that leads to phenomena and hence misses phenomenologythis

criticism doesn't apply to Fichte who has thematized philosophy along this
double line: the foundation of principles (the theory of truth) and the description
of what appears (phenomenology). With Fichte as with Husserl, philosophy's
two fundamental motivesthe "epistemic" and the "epistemological"are
complementary and not mutually exclusive, while one may easily demonstrate
that, in Descartes, one has the "epistemic" without the "phenomenological", and
in Heidegger we have the "phenomenological" as against the "epistemic".
Fichte's and Husserl's common desire that philosophy should be a rigorous
science articulatingin a peaceful and unified waya theory of truth and a
description of phenomena seems to call for a systematic comparison of these
two authors, for which Hyppolite's article La doctrine de la science chez
Husserl et Fichte has early paved the way3.
One may wonder, then, why I haven't chosen to do just this, which would
no doubt represent a major challenge in the way of confronting Fichte with
phenomenology ? Why have I chosen to confront Fichte with an author who
apparently is utterly aloof from the Fichtean theme of philosophy as rigorous
science? To put it differently, why have I selected a phenomenologist who has
criticized the "intellectualist" and "theoreticist" Husserl and who has denounced
his desire to constitute philosophy as a rigorous science as one of the remains of
the old metaphysical mode of thinking? In what manner may Levinas be
compared with Fichtewhen, as early as his Thorie de l'intuition4, he has
favored the "existential" over the "epistemic", the description of the appearing
over the determination of principles, the concreteness of man over the
transcendental ego.
2

See 10.
In 1954
4
Paris, Vrin,
3

Well, he may be compared with Fichte, because some central themes in

his philosophy are also to be found in Fichte'sfirst among which are the
critique of representation and the description of the Other and the themes of the
finite and the infinite. But he also must be compared because these themes are
central to both philosophies, however radically different they remain as regards
the question of philosophy's status. Such is the identity and the difference I wish
to foreground here today, in order to better raise the question of the
"transcendental" in phenomenology. Indeed, as we'll see, what is essentially at
stake in this comparison between Fichte and Levinas is the question of the
meaning and status of the transcendental in phenomenology. While it has
become rather common, today, to oppose to the mostly underrated
transcendental Husserl, the "first" analytical and realist Husserl of the Logische
Untersuchungen and the "third", "genetic" or late Husserl, somehow prefiguring
today's existential themes of the Leib (chair), I hope that the introduction of
Fichte in this debate will allow us to overcome these ruptures and to formulate
differently the question of Husserl's coherence as the founding father of
phenomenology.
1/ How identical are Fichte and Levinas?
One must first try and establish how identical Fichte and Levinas are since
they are seldom compared. However three central and constitutive elements in
Levinas's thought are to be found in almost identical form in Fichte's philosophy.
These three elements are the critique of representation, the description of the
Other as related to the infinite, and the extension to non-sthetic realms of the
problematics of the sublimeas relating the finite and the infinite. I shall first
analyse these three points.
a) The Critique of Representation
While it is well known that the author of Ruine de la reprsentation sees
his philosophy as a critique of metaphysical objectivism, Fichte's involvement
3

with such themes is not really self-evident. And yet, the totality of Fichte's
philosophy may be read as a critique of representation, which, as with Levinas,
opens onto the specific thinking of the Other. Indeed, Fichte questions Kant's
equation, according to which to know is to represent, and to represent is to make
the object figurable. For Kant, figurationdefined as circumscription or as the
ascription of a limitis the condition of possibility of knowledge. In this
context, knowledge undoubtedly refers to the figure, to delineation, and to the
limit. For Kant, to know is to represent, and to represent is to make the object
visible thanks to the schema that imposes a form, a contourin other words,
that creates a figure. Figuration becomes the sign of true knowledge, the nonfigurable remains in the realm of falsehood and deception5.
Fichte happens to question the linking of figure and knowledge and of the
limit and representation, and formulates the existence of modes of knowledge
that go beyond a mere representation as figuration. Concerning the
determination of principleswhat he defines the "doctrine of truth" in the 1804
WLFichte unveils a cognitive process which he calls the "illimitation of the
limit. By this he describes the movement of reason that makes infinite that
which is given as finite. One may illustrate this process with the simple example
of the triangle. I form a mental representation of a triangle. The triangle is what
Fichte, in the Wissenschaftslehre de 1794 (GWL), calls "the line", "the
boundary" or "the limit". The triangle, defined by its limits, is finite by essence.
But this "line", or "limit", must be included into some vaster "space" in order to
appear as a line or a limit. Indeed, were I unable to think beyond the mere limits
of the triangle, it would not appear to me as a trianglethat is to say, as a finite
figure. In other words, I must constitute an horizon within which the triangle
may appear as a limit. By establishing this perimeter (Umfang) within which the
limit may appear, the I, says Fichte, "illimits the limit." It becomes clear that, in
order to be properly thought, an object has to be thus infinitized. To know is not
5

See our book : Critique de la reprsentation, Paris, Vrin, 2000, Part 1.

solely to limit and to set boundaries to an object. To know also consists in

"infinitizing" and "illimiting".
b) The Phenomenological description of the Other
This cognitive process, which Fichte describes at the level of the "doctrine
of truth", will find an equivalent at another level, whichin the 1804 WLhe
calls phenomenology or the doctrine of phenomena. In other words, Fichte
makes a phenomenological description that illustrates a process previously
unveiled as inherent to reason in his epistemic elucidation of principles. What I
am referring to, here, is his description of the appearing of the Other, as found in
his Fundations of Natural Right6. This text is the exact phenomenological
equivalent of the illimitation of the limit and of the un-figuring of the figure
described in the first WL (GWL 1794). First, Fichte reminds us what is
traditionally understood by "understanding" a phenomenon. He writes that "to
know is to fix, to delimit and to determine." 7 The limit or the act of drawing a
limit is a condition of understanding. But the whole demonstration that follows
will try and establish that one may not understand the appearing of the Other,
that one may not bound it within limits, or give it a definitive outline. The last
stage in the description will make clear that a limit cannot be imposed or found.
The figure of the Other is precisely that which cannot be delimited and seems to
outgrow all ascribable limits. By attempting to determine the Other, one draws a
limit that one will need to trespass immediately afterwards. Every progress in
the analysis outgrows a limit. Every moment in the demonstration rolls back the
limit a little further. As successive attempts to reductively delimit fail, the Other
becomes less clearly visible and the limits recede. As the demonstration
progresses, what was initially to be delimited and understood becomes ever less
visible. The face of the Other resists all limitation or delineation. And this
necessary failure to reduce the face of the Other to a mere figure is precisely
whence, for Fichte, true knowledge may emerge. Indeed, it is because the body
6
7

On this analysis see A. Renaut le systme du droit chez Fichte, PUF, 1988
Translate by D. Breazeale

of the Other (Leib, flesh) does not let itself be fixed or determined that it may be
thought as the locus where the infinite of freedom expresses itself. Because he is
a bearer of the infinite, the Other cannot be reduced to limits. This is the reason
why the demonstration must always roll back the limit and effect its illimitation
and this illimitation of the limit is what gives access to the knowledge of the
Other as a free being. The illimitation of the limit is how we access to true
knowledge, since only this illimitation, this un-figuring/defiguration of the
figure is apt to reveal the truth of what one was attempting to examine. In this
context, the illimitation of the limit becomes one of the modalities of knowing.
It then becomes rather easy to compare Fichte's precise description with
Levinas's developments against objectivating thought, against "representation",
which he means to surpass in order to account for the irruption of the Other,
such as one may find it exemplified in the face of the Other whose "only
meaning is irrecusable"8. Alterity (Otherness) conceived as a trace of the infinite
is what allows to outflank traditional philosophical thought to finally feel the
eros of genuine thought. "The face, as against contemporary ontology, brings up
a notion of truth that is not the unveiling of some impersonal neutrality" 9. What
we have in both Fichte and Levinas is this idea that objectifying representation
may and must be outgrown by a thinking of the infinite of which the face of the
Other is a manifestation. This irruption of the infinite in the field of
philosophical thought must now be the focus of our attention.
c) The Infinite in Philosophy
Let us first recall what, to my mind, is one of the most significant
propositions of the Wissenschaftslehre, namely, that the movement of knowledge
is the process of the sublime. The sublime is not to be relegated to the sole
domain of the sthetic: the sublime is the dynamics of the mind. Promoting the
concept of the sublime to the level of a gnoseological process is what is done by
8
9

French edition : Autrement qu 'tre, p. 240, 1978, Paris, livre de poche.

Totalit et infini, p. 43
6

each Wissenschaftslehre, and this promotion always guides us from the critique
of objectifying knowledge to the definition of a knowledge beyond
representation.
In Kant's Third Critique, the sublime is defined as an attempt to "present
the infinite". In this context, the sublime is the beautiful 's counter-concept, since
the beautiful always proceeds from the object's form or figure, and the figure is a
delimitation. The beautiful harks back to ideas of contours, delineation and
limits, while the sublime proceeds inversely and attempts to present the infinite.
The sublime presents itself as an anti-figure. But while the process of the
sublime is an attempt to present the infinite, it is obviously not a positive
presentation. It is quite telling, in this respect, that the statement Kant presents as
an example of the sublime should be the Second Commandment: "You shall not
make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
Because the infinite cannot be contained in a finite figure, the sublime is a sign
of the failure of figuration, of objectifying representation, and of the
circumscription within defined limits. The sublime is this moment when
figuration is being recused. Since the sublime's task is to interweave the finite
and the infinite into one self-same act, representation is not to be resorted to, it is
to be questioned. In other words, for Kant, the sublime questions the
representable, while Fichte sees it as the very sign of the ongoing process of
knowledge. If, among many possible other examples, one focuses on the
structure of the WL Nova Methodo, the dynamics is that of the sublime. In the
very first paragraphs, Fichte explains that the I cannot immediately apply the
predicate "infinite" to himselfin other words, the infinite of freedom cannot be
represented without being determined and limited. But this limitation seems to
require that an object or a figure be constituted which, being inserted within
precise limits, may become apprehensible. Thus the contradiction between
freedom and representation is born. It is the moment of failure for the kantian
7

analysis of the sublime. But this is a fruitful failure that breeds new concepts,
such as the concept of end and the categorical imperative. The interrelation
of the finite and of the infinite as dynamics of freedom and of the knowledge of
freedom, is not some unreachable ideal but the very process by which truth is
being engendered. Intermediate concepts (the end, the categorical imperative,
space and the Other in the Nova Methodo) are the truths given to us by this
movement of rationality. Thus the infinite is not a being that stands without
thought anymore, a being that thought would need to objectify, to determine, to
limit, and hence, inevitably, to negate. The infinite is the very process of
thought. The infinite is what reason generates through its very praxis. And now,
of course, this decisive importance of the infinite obviously is one of the main
characteristics of Levinas's thought. Being an ethical notion par excellence, the
infinite, for Levinas, is the ultimate condition, which is itself a radical
transcendence, extreme difference, absolute alterity (otherness). Contrary to the
classical philosophies of identity and totality, Levinas aims to foreground a
philosophy of difference, of the Other and of the infinite (see Totalit et infini).
Thus emerges a true similarity between the two philosophies that hinges on this
capital point that is the thinking of the infinite or, to be more precise, that the
thinking is the infinite.
We may now consider that the two authors' identity becomes assured.
They share the same critique of representation, the same phenomenological
description of the Other, the same value given to the infinite and the same
promotion of the sublime. All these points are so central in their philosophies
that one is now tempted to ask, not what makes their thoughts comparable but
what makes them different. Naturally, the difference is radical and it explains
why the two authors have never truly been either assimilated or distinguished.
But this very difference, again, finds its source in a new and fundamental
proximity that makes the comparison fruitful. It is this proximity I now wish to

describeand I will later deal with how these two authors are radically
opposed.
2/ The Similarity of the Two Authors' Theory of Meaning
a) Fichte's Theory of Meaning
Indeed, Levinas and Fichte share another decisive position: they both
reject a strictly semantic theory of truth and try to make the Saying emerge
within the Saidwithin what is being said. To demonstrate this, one must first
sum up what is Fichte's theory of meaning. The WLs base a theory of meaning
on the Saying (Sagen) and the Doing (Tun). The Saying (Sagen) is here to be
understood as being the contents of a philosopher's speechsay, Kant or
Spinoza. This Fichtean Saying may thus be compared to what pragmatics,
beginning with Austin, has called the "propositional content". As for the Doing,
it must be strictly understood as the act of the status of the enunciation: it is not
what Kant says but, as proposed in the 1804 WL, "what he presupposes in order
to be able to say what he says." Thus in the proposition "I am not speaking," the
Saying is what this proposition says, while the Doing is what makes it possible,
in other words, the very act of speaking. In this case, one immediately notes that
this very act falsifies the propositional content. In other words, the fundamental
principle of Fichte's theory is what, after Austin and Recanati, we now call the
performative non-contradiction or pragmatic identity. Fichte thus develops a true
and precise theory of meaning, based on the notions of Saying and Doing, which
Levinas will develop as the theory of the Saying and the Said. The way they
both account for the Saying within the Said is a capital point. Fichte aims to
develop a pragmatic conception of meaning, and not only a semantic one.
Indeed, a semantic conception consists in taking into account the only Said (the
propositional content) and in obfucating the act of enunciation (which
pragmatics describes as the illocutionary force). Fichte develops a theory of
meaning that takes into account the pragmatic dimension of meaning. Levinas
9

will also recuse all semantic theories of meaning and he will introduce the
dimension of the Saying within the Said. However, his theory of meaning will
end up being the symetrical reverse of Fichte's. This why we'll need to examine
Levinas's theory.
b) Levinas's Theory of Meaning
It is in Autrement qu'tre that Levinas uses the categories of the Said and
the Saying in order to develop what he calls "the very signifiance of meaning."
(p.17) Always eager to get rid of Husserl's "objectivism" he attempts to refute
Husserl's semantic intentionality. Indeed, for Husserl, the Said, conceived of as a
theme, as what is being said, that is, as object, tends to supersede all other
aspects. Husserl's aim could thus be described as an attempt to obfuscate the
Saying in order to promote the Said. In this respect, he would be as positivistic
as the members of the Circle of Vienna. For Husserl, Levinas tells us, the
correlation of the Said and the Saying is nothing but "the subordination of the
Saying to the Said": "the Said dominates the Saying that enounces it." (p. 19)
But for Levinas the Saying does not vanish in apophansis": one must revise the
whole western theory of meaning which is but the offshoot of the theory of
objectivity, a corollary of "representationalism" and of the imperialism of
"objecthood".
But one may ask what is the Saying if the Said is the theme, the object,
the content? Is it the act performed by the enouncing subject? Obviously not.
Levinas's critique of the objectivism in the Logische Untersuchungen, does not
mean that he adheres to the transcendental subjectivity of the Ideen. Neither
does it mean that he overthrows semantic intentionality in order to re-establish
the act of a sovereign subject. Neither may this Saying be interpreted, after
Austin and Searle, as an illocutionary force implied in every propositional
content. The Critique of representationalism should not be understood as a
foregrounding of the Speech Act, as a claim of pragmatics against the
imperialistic pretentions of semantics.
10

But then, one may ask, what is Saying? Firstly, Saying is Speech
addressed to the other, turned towards the other. It is before all Said, and hence
before all object-oriented intentionality. "The Saying that enounces a Said" is
"pure For-the-Other, pure donation of the sign." (p.81) The Saying will end up
being defined as "supreme passivity of the exposure to the Other." This exposure
by which I offer myself up to the Other makes me infinitely vulnerable. This
vulnerability is born of the "sincerity" with which I give myself up to the Other.
This Saying understood as "Saying to the Other", this sincere and hence riskladen "Saying to the Other" comes before "anything Said" and conditions it.
Levinas writes : "It is necessary that one reach this Saying before the Said, or
that one reduce the Said to it." (p.241) This is exactly the reverse of what one
finds in the Logische Untersuchungen where meaning is made to depend on the
Said, the theme, the object.
This saying that always-already constitues me and by which I connect
with the Other by sincerely exposing myself, this "here I am" is the trace of the
infinite that traverses me and constitutes me. This "Thou" of which I am the
answer, this "Thou" that makes me become an "here I am", actually is God's
call. The analysis of the Saying thus leads us to what Levinas calls "the glory of
the infinite." Ultimately, the Saying is how the infinite is being variegatedly said
within each one of us.
The successive substitutions in Autrement qu'tre are clear. They lead
us from the Saying to the Response to the Other, from the Response to Sincerity
(which, Levinas notes, is not an attribute of the Saying bu the Saying itself), and
from Sincerity to "the infinite saying itself". The signifiance is that of the
Infinite, my saying bears its trace, just like Abraham's "here I am " bore God's
call within itself.
It is thus confirmed that Levinas's theory of meaning is the Logische
Untersuchungen turned upside-down. The Saying comes before the Said, the
expression, the answerer's passivity and the onlooker's activity. Semantics is
11

thus relativized not by a theory of the act or a pragmatics but by a re-thinking of

the sublime, which amounts to an irruption of the infinite that disorganizes the
orderly relations between what is said and the very fact of saying it.
We may now summarize these two thinkers' theories of meaning. What
they have in common is that they both take into account the Saying in the Said.
They both deal with a non-semantic dimension of meaning. But this
convergence is the basis for a radical difference, for Levinas will end up
producing a theory that is exactly the opposite of Fichte's. Their theories are so
symmetrically opposed that the one may be seen as the other's reverse or
inverted figure, thus interlinking them in a strange knot. The identity I described
in my first part and the proximity I suggested in my second part actually lead to
a radical opposition I now wish to describe.
III) The Inverted Figure. Identity or Performative Contradiction as
Condition for the Advent of the Infinite
a) Fichte's Pragmatic Identity as Giving Access to the Infinite
Fichte's theory of meaning took into account the Tun in the Sagen
and foregrounded a new principle of identity that was to become a model for all
philosophical statements to come. Identity, , must be the philosopher's goal if he
wishes to reach truth and to avoid the contradictions that have wrecked all other
philosophieswhether it be Spinoza's, Kant's or Jacobi's. The contradiction
Fichte identifies in other philosophical systemsand which he often underlines
with the latin phrase " propositio facto contraria"is not a contradiction in
terms of formal logic, whether it be the traditional logic of predicates (a is a) or
propositional logic (P implies Q). Neither is it a contradiction between two
opposed elements, such as the newtonian contradiction of physical forces that
Kant called opposition, nor a contradiction between my proposition and the
object it is supposed to convey. Actually, it is a contradiction between the act of
saying X and what is being said of Xstrictly speaking, a performative
12

contradiction. This non-contradictionan epistemic reformulation of the ancient

noesis noseoswhich Fichte puts in the center of his system, is the supreme
law of reason that will generate the process of infinitization and illimitation
above described. The identity of the posits and the posed is an act we perform. It
is an originary act, with neither cause nor necessity, which is by the very fact
that it is effected, performed and accomplished. The freedom of the first
principle is the starting point and should also be the point of arrival. In our every
concepts and productions, we must realize this identity, that is to say that, in one
single act, we must think contradictory determinations (such as the posits of
freedom and the knowledge of freedom). Realizing this amounts to an
effectuation of the sublime process. It does not lead to failure but to the creation
of new, intermediate concepts that all express reflexive identity. In the WL nova
methodo, for instance, the categorical imperative is the only non-contradictory
way to associate freedom and knowledge, thus making it function as a hinge
between the finite and the infinite. Similarly, in the 1804 WL, the Urbegriff
will serve to think the opposition between light and concept and will here again
function as a hinge between the finite and the infinite. It is the realization of
reflexive identity that leads to the sublime. There is thus a link, in Fichte's
thought, between the identity principle, the thinking of the infinite through the
infinitization process, and the production of genuine and rationally verifiable
philosophical concepts. Well, things are exactly the opposite in Levinas.
b) Performative Contradiction as the Access to the Infinite in Levinas
For Levinas, it is the performative contradiction that allows the Infinite to
irrupt into speech. The philosopher must accept the performative contradiction
in order to allow the infinite to manifest itself. This is what Levinas, in
Autrement qu'tre, calls "the philosopher's retraction" (se ddire du
philosophe p. 19 et 20). The philosopher must accept this gaping void, and
should not attempt to fill it in by arguing some impossible coherence.

13

"Thinking the otherwise than being calls perhaps for more daring than the
skeptic who does not fear to assert the impossibility of the utterance while he
realizes this impossibility by the very utterance of it." (p.20)
The philosopher must accept this "ddit " in order to better signifiy "the
nearness where the infinite occurs." Philosophy, by exhibiting its failure, by
accepting this ddit (retraction), by renouncing this coherence, leaves room
for another mode of expression: revelation and prophecy. The performative
contradiction thus becomes the trace of God, the expression of the sublime. The
performative contradiction helps us think the infinite within the finite, the
unsayable at the very heart of what is said. The performative contradiction,
actually, is the "presentation of the infinite"a presentation which, in Kant's
words, is given in the impossibility of presentation. This "retraction of the
philosopher" leads Levinas back to the prophetic utterance, and leads him to call
for philosophy to be superseded in religion. The successive substitutions in
Autrement qu'tre and Etudes talmudiques are clear: Levinas states the
performative contradiction, accepts it and overturns it and makes of our
impossibility to supersede it the very trace of God in us. We should give up
philsophy in favor of religion, give up Husserl in favor of Isaiahwho is
symptomatically mentioned in these pages of Autrement qu'tre that claim the
performative contradiction.
The difference between the two authors then appears clearly. Fichte poses
pragmatic identity as the condition of the advent of the infinite and the condition
of philosophy. L poses pragmatic contradiction as the condition of the irruption
of the infinite and the supersedence of philosophy (the philosopher's retraction).
We thus clearly have here theories that are symmetrically opposed. And this
strict inversion of the symmetrical pattern, to my mind, says something about
the meaning of the transcendental in today's phenomenology. It is with this
suggestion that I wish to conclude.

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