Abstract
This essay takes up the challenge to philosophical biography thrown down by Collingwood, Rorty and others that biography is useful only for its “gossip value” and hence not for an understanding of a philosopher’s thought. The author, a well-known biographer of both Kant and Fichte, focuses in this essay on the case of the latter, considering how Fichte’s biography may offer some perspective on his famous claim that “what kind of philosophy someone chooses depends on the kind of person he is.”
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Notes
- 1.
Collingwood R. G. (2001) The Principles of History and Other Writings in Philosophy of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- 2.
Richard Rorty (1994), “Another Possible World,” in Martin Heidegger. Politics, Art and Technology. Ed. by Karsten Harries and Christoph Jamme. (New York/London: Holmes and Meier), p. 37.
- 3.
Rorty, “Another Possible World,” p. 35.
- 4.
Perhaps a biographer’s task is mainly of negative relevance in the philosophical context, i.e. to show how “the philosophical tools” of a thinker should not be applied (if they are to be applied for the task the thinker developed them for. Ever since the time of Descartes and the beginning of modern philosophy, it has been, to use Locke’s phrase, “ambition enough [for philosophers] to be employed as an Under-Labourer in clearing the Ground a little, and removing some of the Rubbish, that lies in the way to Knowledge.” (Essay 10). Perhaps a biographer in philosophy should be viewed as an under-Labourer of other under-laborers (who may indeed be true philosophers), and be engaged in a preliminary clearing of “the Ground … removing some of the Rubbish, that lies in the way” of those who really want to understand what a thinker is saying. The effects of this work will not always be predictable. It may make the work of some philosophers easier, it may remove so much of the rubble that there is nothing left to do for someone who thought there was at least some paper in the matter, it may undermine some apparently solid philosophical heaps of rubble, and it may even open up entirely new prospects for others by showing how implausible and incoherent some of the “slightly different worlds” imagined by philosophers really are.
- 5.
Walter Schulz (1968), “Einleitung,” Fichte-Schelling Briefwechel (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp), p. 13.
References
Collingwood RG (2001) The principles of history and other writings in philosophy of history. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Rorty R (1994) Another possible world. In: Harries K, Jamme C (eds) Martin Heidegger. Politics, art and technology. Holmes and Meier, New York/London
Schulz W (1968) Einleitung. In: Fichte-Schelling Briefwechel. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main
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Kuehn, M. (2015). The (Ir)relevance of Biography: The Case of Fichte. In: Speight, A. (eds) Narrative, Philosophy and Life. Boston Studies in Philosophy, Religion and Public Life, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9349-0_14
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