Forme di ‘immanenza’ nell’idealismo tedesco

Abstract

Jean Paul Richter wrote that, at the end of the 18th century, «to England belongs the empire of the sea, to France that of the land» and, after Idealism, «to Germany that of the sky». In other words, Idealism is conceived as an abstract philosophy, entirely detached from reality. In this essay, I intend to demonstrate the opposite by examining the different meanings of the word ‘immanent’ in post-Kantian philosophy. In fact, Fichte’s Idealism allows us to overcome the abstractedness of Kant’s distinction between phaenomenon and noumenon, which echoes his problematic and extrinsic distinction between immanent and transcendent. Fichte was the first to understand the contradictory nature of reality and to propose the unity of the Absolute Ego as its criterion and pre-supposition. This essay will show that the structure of Absolute Ego is actually what defines contradiction. In this sense the Absolute Ego turns out to be ‘immanent’ to reality, while, at the same time, surpassing it. Hegel will bring this approach to its conclusion by showing that unity – the criterion by means of which we understand contradiction – lies entirely within contradiction itself, in the unity of one of the contradictory terms.