178 INTRODUCTION 



dogmatism 1 . Yet, while Kant thus escapes the contra- 

 diction in Leibniz's view, he cannot be said to give us 

 a satisfactory solution of the difficulty 2 . 



The Influence of Leibniz on Fichte. 



In the modern idealism which first took shape in the 

 writings of Fichte, there may be traced the influence of 

 certain leading ideas in the philosophy of Leibniz, to 

 which Kant had inevitably done less than justice. The 

 work of Fichte is generally regarded as an endeavour to 

 give systematic unity to the philosophy of Kant by get- 

 ting rid of the thing-in-itself, regarded as entirely outside 

 of experience. Indeed, until Kant repudiated his inter- 

 pretation, Fichte regarded himself as an expositor of the 

 true Kantian view, and a defender of the critical philo- 

 sophy against the misunderstandings of its unintelligent 

 disciples, Fichte's main idea is that experience (in the 

 Kantian sense) has its basis in a self-consciousness (an 

 Ich-heit) which is itself the root of the distinction between 

 the empirical ego and the empirical non-ego, between 

 subject and object. Both subject and object are logically 

 involved in the original self-consciousness, out of which 

 all experience, both in its matter and in its form, may 

 be deduced. Thus all reference to a reality beyond 

 experience becomes unmeaning as well as unnecessary. 

 The unity of the universe is maintained with pantheistic 



1 D. Nolen (La Critique de Kant et la Metaphysique de Leibniz, pp. 331 

 et sqq.) regards the Monadology as a necessary complement to the 

 ' Criticism ' of Kant. It seems to him that the * thing-in-itself has, 

 in the philosophy of Kant, a function similar to that of the 

 1 possible thing ' or ' essence ' in the system of Leibniz. An 

 ingenious attempt has also been make by Otto Riedel (Die Monado- 

 logischen Bestimmungen in Kants Lehre vom Ding an sicti) to show that 

 the things-in-themselves, in so far as they are conceived as positive, 

 have the characteristics of Monads. There is a hint of the same 

 view in Ueberweg's Commentary on the two editions of the Critique 

 of Pure Reason. 



2 For Kant's account of his own relation to Leibniz see Appendix 

 E, p. 208. 



