The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Tim Newcomb (Translator)

A new translation directly from the original manuscript of Hegel's 1801 commentary on his contemporaries Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, both of whom were Kantian philosophers he knew personally. This edition contains an extensive afterword on Hegelian philosophy and a timeline of his life and works.

First published in 1801 by the academic publisher Jena, "The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems" (original German "Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie"). He contends that while Fichte's philosophy is centered on subjective idealism and the self-conscious "I," Schelling's system focuses on the absolute, which transcends subjectivity and objectivity. Hegel's analysis in this work lays the groundwork for his own philosophical development, as he seeks to reconcile and transcend the limitations he identifies in both Fichte and Schelling's approaches.

149 pages, Paperback

Published October 20, 2023

About the author

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher and one of the founding figures of German Idealism. Influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel formulated an elaborate system of historical development of ethics, government, and religion through the dialectical unfolding of the Absolute. Hegel was one of the most well-known historicist philosopher, and his thought presaged continental philosophy, including postmodernism. His system was inverted into a materialist ideology by Karl Marx, originally a member of the Young Hegelian faction.