Fichte on Human Motivation and Action

The last twenty years have seen an awakening of interest in Kant's theory of rational agency. Despite the immediate post-Kantian idealists' profound interest in and contributions to the development of this area of Kant's philosophy, there has yet to be any commensurate rise of interest in them. This book takes an important step in the direction by providing an overview of a major idealist who has long been recognized in the Continent for his rigorous work on freedom, will and agency. The first three chapters orientate the reader by clarifying the place of Fichte's account of our capacity to act in the empirical world in its larger historical and systematic context. The last three chapters offer a critical examination of his account of human motivation in terms of drives, and action in terms of freedom, willing and efficacious acting. Besides adumbrating the full range of Fichte's complexities and subtleties as a philosopher of action and suggesting how his unique transcendental approach might address traditional problems pertaining to agency, this interpretation provides a good departure-point for contemporary readers, teachers and scholars of German idealism to develop their own.