Interpretation of Fichte’s Nicht-Ich
Seidel argues that Fichte’s Nicht-Ich should be understood through Kant’s concept of “infinite judgment”. According to Kant, there are two ways to negate a positive judgment such as “the soul is mortal”: by denying the predicate to the subject (“the soul is not mortal”) or by affirming a non-predicate (“the soul is non-mortal”). The latter opens up a third domain of indefinite judgment that undermines the distinction between negation and affirmation. For instance, “undead” is neither alive nor dead, but something that exists beyond both states. Similarly, “inhuman” does not merely denote a lack of humanity but also implies an excess that is inherent to human beings.
This shift in understanding is what distinguishes the pre-Kantian universe from the Kantian universe. Prior to Kant, human beings were seen as beings of reason, struggling against external excesses such as animal lust and divine madness. However, with Kant and German Idealism, the excess to be fought is located at the very core of subjectivity itself. This excess is immanent and is the reason why German Idealism uses the metaphor of “night” to describe the core of subjectivity, in contrast to the Enlightenment’s “Light of Reason”. Thus, madness, which was previously seen as a loss of humanity, now signifies an explosion of the very core of a human being.
Fichte’s non-Self should be understood as an affirmation of a non-predicate rather than as a negation of the predicate. It is a pure formal conversion that is unlimited and absolute, like the passage from Being to Nothingness in Hegel’s philosophy. The rise of Non-Ich from pure immanence of Life is not yet delimited from Ich. The transition from non-Ich to Object as not-Ich occurs through Anstoss, which refers to an ex-timate obstacle. Anstoss is not non-Ich, which comprises the subject, nor is it Object, which is externally opposed to the subject. It is neither “absolutely nothing” nor something that is delimited. Anstoss is “nothing counted as something” and is a minimal distinction between form and content.
Fichte emphasizes this distinction between form and content in the passage from the first to the second thesis. A = A is the pure form of self-identity, whereas non-Self is its symmetrical opposite, a formless content.