Abstract

This chapter addresses the issue of the relationship between the domain of what there is (being) and the domain of what can be known (thought) in the Wissenschaftslehre of 1804. It argues that Fichte’s project should be read as a contribution to transcendental ontology, i.e., to an account of being and existence that shows that there are no objects or facts in principle inaccessible to human knowledge acquisition. In this context, the chapter offers an interpretation of Fichte’s concept of “absolute knowing”: absolute knowing consists in our capacity to grasp the concept of empirical knowledge on a level of reflection that differs in category from fallible thought about objects.