Repository | Journal | Volume | Articles

In the present paper I intend to investigate Fichte’s use of the idea of Anerkennung, or recognition –the end that our amour-propre leads us to seek – in his positive account of how humans can realize, all at once, virtue, freedom, and rationality. In other words, I will examine how Fichte appropriates Rousseau's complex theory of amour-propre and human recognition. My claim is that even though Fichte underestimates the dangers to human well-being posed by our drive to be recognized by others, he can be credited with discovering in that same human need a potential for avoiding those dangers that Rousseau was only dimly aware of.

Full citation: