Contemporary French Philosophy

CANGUILHEM, FICHTE AND HEGEL ANDY JONES 08024738

This presentation will:

- Discuss Fichtes threefold ontology of the Ich from

the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre - Discuss Canguilhems ontology of health in relation to Fichte - Discuss both Fichte and Canguilhem in relation to Stones account of Hegel in Petrified Intelligence.

1. First Absolutely unconditioned principle : A is A

Fichte begins with the identity proposition A is A (A=A) which he claims is universally accepted as an empirical fact to consciousness. A is not asserted as existing, only If A exists, then A exists (I,93). What is established in the proposition A = A is the necessary connection between the two that is posited absolutely, and without any other ground. To this necessary connection I give the preliminary designation X. (ibid).

Fichte: A is (X) A
- The self judges according to X, as a law; which law must therefore be given to the self, and since it is posited absolutely and without any other ground, must be given to the self alone. (I, 94). - X is possible only in relation to an A; now X is really present in the self: and so A must also be present in the self, insofar as X is related to it. (ibid) - there is something that is permanently uniform, forever one and the same; and hence the X that is absolutely posited can also be expressed as I=I; I am I. (ibid). - the proposition I am I is unconditionally and absolutely valid, since it is equivalent to the proposition X; it is valid not merely in form but also in content. In it the I is posited, not conditionally, but absolutely, with the predicate of equivalence to itself; hence it really is posited, and the proposition can also be expressed as I am. (I,95).

I am I
The selfs own positing of itself is thus its own pure

activity [...] the self exists and posits its own existence by virtue of merely existing. (I, 96). That whose being or essence consists simply in the fact that it posits itself as existing, is the self as absolute subject. As it posits itself, so it is; and as it is itself; and hence the self is absolute and necessary for the self. What does not exist for itself is not a self (I,97) it is not the I am that is based on A = A but rather the latter proposition that is based on the former (I, 98)

 2. Second Principle: condition as to content: ~A =~A

As with A, ~A = ~A means If the opposite of A is posited,

then the opposite of A is posited. (I, 102). Fichte expresses the similarity between A and ~A as we should then be asserting absolutely the same connection (= X) as before (ibid). ~A is derived from, but not contained within A = A since the form of counterpositing is so far from being contained in that positing, that in fact it is flatly opposed to this. Hence it is an absolute and unconditional opposition (ibid). It is further presupposed that the self which acts in both cases, and judges in both, is the same. If it could be opposed to itself in the two acts, ~A would be equal to A. Hence even the transition from positing to counterpositing is possible only possible through the identity of the self [...] opposition in general is posited absolutely by the self (I,103).

Self = Not Self

Nothing is posited to begin with, except the self; and

this alone is asserted absolutely (1). Hence there can be absolute opposition only to the self. But that which is opposed to the self = the not-self (I, 104). Whatsoever attaches to the self, the mere fact of opposition necessitates that its opposite attaches to the non-self [...] the shallowness of this explanation can be easily demonstrated . If I am to present anything at all, I must oppose it to the presenting self [...] this observation is so striking, that anyone who fails to grasp it, and is not thereby uplifted into transcendental idealism, must unquestionably be suffering from mental blindness (I, 104-5)

 3. Third Principle: condition as to form

Insofar as the not-self is posited, the self is not posited; for the not-self completely nullifies the self. Now the not-self is posited in the self; for it is counterposited; but all such counterpositing presupposes the identity of self, in which something is posited and then something set in opposition thereto. Thus the self is not posited in the self, insofar as the as the not-self is posited therein (I,106)

Presupposed for

Self is not posited in the self

Necessary for

Nullifies the self

X is a product of Y
For, if I = I, everything is posited that is posited in the self.

But now the second principle is supposed to be posited in the self, and also not posited therein. Thus I does not = I, but rather self = not-self, and not-self = self (I, 107). 1) The opposites to be unified lie in the self, as consciousness. So X too, must exist in consciousness. 2) Both self and not self are alike products of original acts of the self, and consciousness itself is similarly a product of the selfs first original act, its own positing of itself. 3) yet, according to our previous arguments [...] X itself must be a product, and of an original act of self at that. Hence there is an act of the human mind = Y, whose product is X. (I, 107) The opposition in question must be taken up into the identity of the one consciousness (I, 108).

Opposition and Striving between self and absolute Self

Only now, in virtue of the concept thus established, can it be

said of both that they are something. The absolute self of the first principle is not something (it has, and can have no predicate); it is simply what it is, and this can be explained no further (I, 109) We shall encounter his (Spinozas) highest unity again in the Science of Knowledge; though not as something that exists, but as something that we ought to and yet cannot, achieve (I, 101). insofar as there is a not-self opposed to it, the self is itself in opposition to the absolute self. And so all these oppositions are thus united, without detriment to the unity of consciousness; and this, in effect, is proof that the concept we proposed is the correct one. (I, 110)

Fichte: to sum up
1) A = A

2) A = (X) A
3) X = I am (Y) 4)

5)
6) 7) 8)

~A = (X) ~A ~A = A A = ~A A and ~A are unified in Y; all opposition is unified in consciousness. A = A + ~A

Canguilhem & Fichte

Canguilhems naturalist system is analogous to Fichtes

transcendentalism. According to Fichte, Canguilhem must be suffering from mental blindness. Canguilhem says: It is true that the term teleology has remained too charged with implications of a transcendental kind to be gainfully employed; final is already better; but what would be better still would be organismic [...] This mode of expression is suited to the present tendency in pathology and elsewhere to put the total organism and its behaviour again into the forefront (N/P, p.129)

Canguilhem
Canguilhems account is ontological: In our essay we

compared the ontological conception of disease, in which disease is portrayed as the qualitative opposite of health, with the positivist conception, which derives it quantitatively from the normal state (N/P, p.171). The reason for the polemical final purpose and usage of the concept of norm must be sought, as far as we are concerned, in the essence of the normal abnormal-relationship. It is not a question of a relationship of contradiction and externality but one of inversion and polarity. (N/P, p.146). Fichte uses the word Gagenteil here, opposite or contrary, not Widerspruch, the contradictory. If the self and non-self were contradictory, that would be the end of that, and the end of Fichtes attempt at a system (Seidel, 1993, p.48)

Canguilhem
I am still running the risk of trying to establish the fundamental meaning of normal by means of philosophical analysis of life understood as activity of opposition to inertia (non-ego) and indifference (absolute ego). Life tries to win against death in all senses of the word to win, foremost in the sense of winning in gambling. Life gambles against growing entropy (N/P p.143). When we say that continual perfect health is abnormal , we are expressing in fact that experience of the living indeed includes disease. Abnormal means precisely non-existent, inobservable. Hence it is another way of saying that continual health is a norm and a norm that does not exist. In this misconstrued sense, it is obvious that the pathological is not abnormal. (N/P, p.77) Opposed to some doctors who are too quick to see crimes in diseases because those affected commitments some excess or omission somewhere, we think that power and temptation to fall sick are an essential character of human physiology. To paraphrase a saying of Valry, we have said the possible abuse of health is part of health (N/P, p.117) In the long run a malaise arises from not being sick in a world where there are sick men [...] Thus there arises in the normal man an anxiety about having remained normal, a need for disease as a test of health, that is, as its proof, an unconscious search for disease, a provocation of it. Normal mans disease is the appearance of a fault in his own biological confidence in himself (N/P, p.179)

Stone (2005) Petrified Intelligence: Nature in Hegels Philosophy. New York: SUNY Press
I shall perhaps use a suprising strategy: an

extended comparison between the Philosophy of Nature and the theory of consciousness outline in the Philosophy of Mind (p.31) Although Stone maintains that there is fundamentally no difference between consciousness and nature, she explains nature in terms of, and as an extension of, consciousness. She begins from consciousness: According to Hegel, consciousness suffers from an initial opposition that impels it to proceed through various forms (ibid).

Nature suffers?
For Stone, Hegel believes that the natural form which he

calls negativity (empirically, time) necessarily succeeds externality (empirically, space) because negativity provides the rationally necessary solution to the contradiction (Widerspruch) from which externality suffers. (p.60) Hegel often uses the notion of contradiction to denote mere tensions or oppositions [...] Hegel employs the term contradiction in an extended sense to embrace tensions of varying degrees (an extended usage reflected in his regularly taking tension (Spannung) to be synonymous with contradiciton). (p.62)