even accuses Fichte of being too egocentric and solipsistic. That there is perhaps a real
difference between Fichte and Schelling becomes clear when one looks at the different
ways both philosophers deal with the problem of other minds. Fichte, at least in the early
versions of his Wissenschaftslehre, claims that we can overcome the gap between other
people’s minds and our own only by some kind of inference from our own rational nature
to the rational nature of other people. Philosophy even has to show how there can be
other minds in the first place. In sharp contrast to this, Schelling does not believe that
there is any philosophical problem with other minds at all.
- The picture of discursive practice sketched here is to a large extent inspired by
H.P. Grice’s and R. Brandom’s work. Both approaches, in my view, cover important aspects
of the ‘dialectic’ way of philosophizing that Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel developed. - It is not necessary to use the phrase ‘I know’ in order to make a knowledge-
claim. But this does not mean that talk about knowledge is dispensable in general.
Whereas it may be correct that uttering ‘I know that p’ instead of ‘p’ makes little sense,
ascribing knowledge from the second- or third-person perspective makes perfect sense. - Remember that I argue on the level of ordinary and scientific everyday dis-
course here. The pragmatic dilemma occurs only when it comes to ‘real’, object-level
asserting. This does not tell against using expressive vocabulary on a meta-level, in a
theory of rational discourse, where its use may serve to make discursive commitments
and entitlements explicit. - It is no objection that the word ‘I’ occurs many times in the writings of Fichte
or in existentialist philosophy, e.g. in Sartre’s. Both Fichte and Sartre make it sufficiently
clear that they do not talk about themselves but about a kind of abstract or general I, i.e.
about subjectivity or personality as such. Cf. J.G. Fichte, Die Bestimmung des
Menschen, Hamburg, 2000, preface. - Of course this account of religious language use privileges the subjective modes
of religious speech, such as creed, prayer, or psalm (including religious anthems and
hymns). This immediately brings with it the problem of how to deal with rather imper-
sonal modes of speech that belong to the religious language game nonetheless. But a
subjectivist account of religious speech can accommodate these cases. The opposite,
impersonal approach to religious speech is faced with more serious difficulties. - Maybe this is what Schleiermacher wanted to say when he claimed that religion
is a matter of feeling and emotion rather than reason or intellect. Cf. F.D.E.
Schleiermacher, Über Religion. Put this way, however, this statement is rather misleading. - This does not mean that any expressive speech act is religious. Expressiveness
is a necessary, not a sufficient condition for religious speech. - Of course, a lot more is necessary to show that religious speech can be veridi-
cal. But I cannot, for the sake of brevity, defend this claim here. It might be enough
for the present purpose to stress that it is common ground between Schelling and
Hegel. - Cf. my “Glaube als Hoffnung und Vertrauen: Zu einigen religionsphilosophi-
schen Thesen Friedrich Kambartels,“ in Dialektik(2000) 1, 139–148. - I simplify a lot here. For example, it is not clear whether Schelling really holds
that art is a higher form of knowledge than philosophy. In the same passage of the
Introductionto the System of Transcendental Idealismwhere Schelling claims that art is
the highest form of knowledge—and of reality—he also writes that the philosophyof art
“therefore” is the completion of philosophy (§3). This remark makes the relation
between philosophy and art in his system quite difficult to understand.
Notes to Pages 62–65 207