O valor programático de “Sobre a dignidade do homem” de Fichte

Abstract

This article argues for an indexical utility of Johann Gottlieb Fichte's pamphlet On the dignity of man (1794). Written as a reminder to the participants of the Zurich lectures on the doctrine of science, this text is often presented as having low philosophical value, since its few pages have a highly imagistic and rhetorical content that hardly matches the tone followed in other expositions by the author. In order to defend an introductory usefulness of the text, our article will be divided into two parts. In the first, we will give a brief exposition of the content, in which we will identify three central themes of his major writings during the Jena period: 1. The scope of the theoretical sphere of philosophy 2. The primacy of the practical sphere over the theoretical in philosophy. 3. The admission of the social field as a condition for the possibility of practical philosophy. In the second moment, we will try to expose the alignment of these three elements of his system with his On the Concept of the Doctrine of Science (1794) and his Some lectures concerning the Scholar’s Vocation (1794). If successful, our investigation will have as its main product the defense of the panoramic legitimacy of this text in Fichte's body of work and, secondarily, it will indicate that, as early as 1794, the author's position in relation to the problem of the philosophical foundation of the social sphere, which is characteristic of his later production, had already matured.