Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ Assume, moreover, that philosophy, or, if you prefer, the science of knowledge, consists in this very hunting up of the manifold elements of consciousness, by means of conclusions drawn from the given to the construction of the not-given, and you have already a very clear conception of that science. That science is the demonstration, or the deduction, of all consciousness, of course in its primary and fundamental determinations, from some given determination of actual consciousness ”

“ As for the dispute, what this one or that one may consider philosophy to be, the science of knowledge takes no cognizance of it. It appeals to its right to select its own problem; and if anything but the solution of this problem is to be called philosophy, then it does not choose to be called philosophy. ”

“ If you examine a separate piece of the watch, and proceed to draw your conclusions according to the well-known laws of mechanics as to the construction of the other necessary parts, in order to give to that one part, which you actually perceive, the whole determinateness which you perceive belongs to it, do you, in this your function of drawing conclusions, actually see and feel, or perceive with your external senses, those other parts? ”

“ That science is a demonstration of this consciousness utterly independent of actual perception in consciousness; precisely as you need not actually perceive all the other parts of the watch in order to know how they are, and necessarily must be, in actuality, if the watch is properly constructed. ”

“ In that case, would it not be possible to discover, by means of mere conclusions drawn from each separate part of actual consciousness, how all other consciousness must be—although that other consciousness do not become actual—precisely as you held yourself able to state from your observation of one wheel the construction of all others, although not actually observing them? ”

“ A. Undoubtedly; precisely as you become conscious of the wheels, the existence whereof in the machine you assert from a mere conclusion, but not conscious, as if you saw or felt them. It ought to have become clear to you ere this, that there is a distinction in the modes of becoming conscious. ”

“ If this piece is once given as a piece of such a mechanism, then it is necessary that all other pieces be precisely as they are, if they are to form a whole with it.
A. Hence, if you only properly understand the mechanism of this work of art, you will not need at all, as we assumed at first, to observe one part of the machinery after the other in actual perception, but after you have seen and correctly comprehended the one part, you can by its means supply all the others without actually perceiving them ”