Contribution to the Correction of the Public's Judgments on the French Revolution

281 Pages·2021·2.039 MB·English

by  J. G. Fichte

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SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy
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Dennis J. Schmidt, editor
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1762–1814, author. | Church, Jeffrey, 1978–
editor, translator, writer of introduction. | Schön, Anna Marisa, editor,
translator, writer of introduction.
Title: Contribution to the correction of the public’s judgments on the French
revolution / J.G. Fichte ; translated by Jeffrey Church and Anna Marisa Schön.
Other titles: Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publicums über die
französische Revolution. English
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series:
SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020024803 | ISBN 9781438482170 (hardcover : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781438482187 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Foreign public
opinion, German. | France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Philosophy. |
France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Historiography. | France—History—
Revolution, 1789–1799—Influence. | Political science—Germany—Philosophy—
History. | Legitimacy of governments.
Classification: LCC DC158.8 .F52513 2021 | DDC 944.04—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024803
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Contents
Introduction vii
Translators’ Note xxv
Chronology xxix
Contribution to the Correction of the Public’s
Judgments on the French Revolution 1
BOOK ONE
On Judging the Legitimacy of a Revolution
Preface 5
Introduction 13
Chapter One
Does a People Actually Have the Right to Change
Its Constitution? 43
Chapter Two
Sketch of the Further Course of the Examination 65
Chapter Three
Is the Right to Change the Constitution Alienable through
the Contract of All with All? 69
Chapter Four
On Privileged Classes in General, in Relation to the Right of
Changing the State 107
vi | Contents
Chapter Five
On the Aristocracy in Particular, in Relation to the Right of
Constitutional Change 133
Chapter Six
On the Church, in Relation to the Right of Constitutional
Change 179
Afterword 213
Appendix One
Correspondence 215
Appendix Two
Review by Friedrich von Gentz 229
Glossary 233
Index 237
Introduction
The Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publikums über die französische
Revolution (hereafter Contribution), published in 1793, is the second
major published work of the young, up-and-coming philosopher Johann
Gottlieb Fichte. Fichte made a splash in the academic community already
in 1792 with his Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, an analysis of
the justification and limits of claims to religious revelation that drew
heavily on Kant’s critical philosophy (and, indeed, it was mistakenly
thought to be authored by Kant at first). However, the French Revolu-
tion and the debate surrounding it in the German states quickly drew
Fichte’s attention, leading him to write in a more popular vein in an
attempt to rekindle public support for the Revolution. The Contribution
was written in winter 1792–93 (the first part or booklet, comprising the
preface, introduction, and chapters 1–3) and summer 1793 (the second
part, comprising chapters 4–6), during some of the bloodiest periods
of the Revolution.1 The work represents Fichte’s first sustained popular
writing, characterized by his distinctive blend of abstract philosophical
language and concrete, passionate calls for reform. After completing the
second part of the first book Fichte accepted an offer for a prestigious
professorship in Jena in critical philosophy and so abandoned this project,
leaving the entire second volume unfinished.2 He then proceeded in Jena
1. See the editor’s introduction to the Contribution in Johann Gottlieb Fichte,
Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Reihe 1, Band 1, Werke
1791–1794, ed. Hans Jacob and Reinhard Lauth (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fro-
mann-Holzboog, 1964), 196–97.
2. Fichte abandoned the project before writing the second book because of the consid-
erable expectations of his academic position in Jena, as well as a desire to avoid further
controversy as a radical when Fichte was revealed to be the author of the Contribution.
See especially his letter to Goethe, translated in the first appendix, requesting political
protection from the prince, in exchange for not writing any more pamphlets.
vii
viii | Introduction
to develop his philosophical system in a series of works—above all the
Wissenschaftslehre of 1794—which made him one of the most profound
and influential philosophical minds of post-Kantian idealism.
The Contribution is an important text for several reasons. First, it
sheds light on the German debate about the French Revolution, much
less widely known than the contemporaneous debates in France, England,
and the United States. Second, it is an innovative work in the history
of political theory, as it synthesizes Locke’s and Rousseau’s social contract
theory and Kant’s moral philosophy, yet applies contractualist principles in
a much more individualistic, even anarchist, direction. Finally, the work
provides insight into the development of Fichte’s thought, not only in
his political philosophy, but also in his foundational theoretical work, the
Wissenschaftslehre. In what follows, we will take up each of these topics,
placing the work in the context of the German debate over the French
Revolution (section 1), in the context of modern social contract theory
(section 2), and in the context of Fichte’s philosophical development
in the 1790s (section 3).
1. The French Revolution in Germany
The early response of the German public to the Revolution was celebra-
tory. The year 1789 seemed to mark a new stage in humanity’s history
for many thinkers, providing hope for the creation of a regime founded
on reason, merit, and the “rights of man” rather than superstition, cor-
ruption, and privilege. Indeed, even moderate to conservative thinkers
weighed in with their support. Friedrich Gentz, for example, who would
go on to be one of the most vehement critics of the Revolution after
translating Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France into
German in 1793, wrote in 1790:
The Revolution constitutes the first practical triumph of
philosophy, the first example in the history of the world of
the construction of government upon the principles of an
orderly, rationally-constructed system. It constitutes the hope
of mankind and provides consolation to men elsewhere who
continue to groan under the weight of age-old evils.3
3. Quoted in Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1966), 436.
Introduction | ix
As the Revolution proceeded, however, many authors found the increasing
radicalism and violence of the revolutionaries abhorrent. The French
revolutionary army occupied Mainz in 1792–93, and peasant revolts broke
out in Saxony in the wake of revolutionary enthusiasm, further damp-
ening support. Conservative governments of many of the German states
promulgated repressive policies against political subversion. Nevertheless,
in journal publications throughout this period, the debate between Burke
and Thomas Paine became well-known and well-rehearsed.4
One of the most important and influential critics of the French
Revolution in Germany—and a target of Fichte’s polemic in the Contri-
bution—was August Wilhelm Rehberg. Rehberg hailed from the elector-
ate of Hanover in Northwest Germany, which had a close relationship
dynastically and hence politically with Great Britain. Like many fellow
Hanoverians, Rehberg studied and was influenced by Britain’s moderate
constitutional monarchy and its empiricist philosophy, embodied above
all in the skepticism of David Hume. Rehberg’s friend and fellow writer
Ernst Brandes travelled to England, struck up a friendship with Edmund
Burke, and attempted to shape Hanoverian politics according to the model
of British constitutional monarchy. Rehberg himself was commissioned by
the Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung to review the latest French and English
pamphlets about the Revolution. These reviews became the basis for
Rehberg’s influential work, Untersuchungen über die Französische Revolution
(hereafter, Untersuchungen), published in January 1793.5
Rehberg’s Untersuchungen consists of two parts: the first volume takes
aim at the underlying principles and the deleterious consequences of the
Revolution, while the second examines the history of the Revolution, its
causes and missteps. Rehberg’s main critique of the Revolution’s fundamen-
tal principles concerns its overreliance on abstract reason. For Rehberg,
reason can discern formal, abstract legal principles such as the rights of
man or the general will, but, because of its abstractness, it cannot provide
any determinate political guidance: “The laws of reason,” according to
Rehberg, “are not sufficient as a basis to derive the laws of civil society”
4. On the Revolution and its reception in Germany, see Epstein, German Conser-
vatism, ch. 9.
5. August Wilhelm Rehberg, Untersuchungen über die Französische Revolution, 2 vols.
(Hannover: Ritscher, 1793). On Rehberg’s thought and life, see Frederick Beiser,
Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political
Thought, 1790–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 302–9;
Epstein, German Conservatism, ch. 11.