CFP: Fichte: Determination, Intersubjectivity and the State

We are excited to announce the upcoming conference Fichte: Determination, Intersubjectivity, and the State in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from March 11-13, 2026, and we invite you to join us.

One of the defining features of German classical philosophy is its emphasis on intersubjectivity. In one way or another, the various thinkers in this tradition gravitated towards the idea that subjectivity is essentially mediated through the relation to other subjects. In other words, intersubjectivity constitutes a crucial moment of subjectivity as such.

Arguably, it was Fichte who inaugurated this line of thought. Fichte's analysis of the I was simultaneously the analysis of the limitation of the I. Specifically, according to Fichte, the subject or the I acts out of her spontaneity, i.e., denying that anything external to her thinking has the capacity to ground it. In this sense, there is no pure, absolute subject prior to her entering into relations with the external world. If the subject's activity or thought were to experience no opposition, it would be infinite. However, thought is essentially determined; she who does not think determinate thoughts does not think at all. Thus, the experience of limitation – imposed on the causality of her thought or on her self-positing activity (to use Fichte's vocabulary) – is precisely what constitutes the subject as a subject. In this way, her limitation is not external to her but rather the condition of the possibility of her very existence. This is the crux of Fichte's theory of the Anstoß or impulse.

Closely related is Fichte's concept of Aufforderung or summons, which explicitly introduces the intersubjective dimension. It denotes the slightly more specific idea that thinking as such, by conceptual necessity, already entails a social dimension – thought is, in essence, a thought for two. The immediate continuation of this idea is the notion of Anerkennung, which Fichte uses to describe the relation of reciprocity, equality, and symmetry that is necessary for a functional community. The notion of Anerkennung (recognition) proved to be profoundly influential, most immediately for Hegel, and then notably reemerged in contemporary political thought.

Beyond this rough outline, however, the nexus between these notions – along with nicht-Ich and das Andere – remains unclear and relatively unexplored. Are these systematically distinct concepts in Fichte's philosophy, or do they represent a shift in emphasis in his thought from theoretical to practical? Where precisely does the subject emerge between Aufforderung and Anerkennung? Is Anerkennung the manner in which a subject is practically constituted or primarily a prescriptive notion, an ideal for a good social and political organisation? And does the post-Fichtean use of Anerkennung faithfully preserve Fichte's original idea, or has it undergone significant conceptual and semantic transformation?

Moreover, there is an interesting shift in how Fichte proceeds from this thought of community based on recognition to the institutional level of the state. In his early Jena-period Foundations of Natural Right (1796–1797), the state is conceived as a juridical institution that secures the conditions for the realization of freedom and grants subjects’ moral autonomy by institutionalizing intersubjective recognition. In his later works, however, such as The Closed Commercial State (1800) and Addresses to the German Nation (1808), the state takes a more formative role in the form of an ethical community whose intersubjective bonds are constituted employing its members' common possession of an 'original' language and their shared experience of having undergone a German national education.

Since recognition between subjects for Fichte is always immanent and developed by logical necessity, and therefore independent of any external circumstances, does Fichte's idea of intersubjectivity then challenge or reinforce – and in what ways – the authority of the state as an ethical institution? These are questions that remain pertinent and can be reenacted considering contemporary political and social dilemmas. How should we conceive of the relation between the individual, the community, and the state in the context of emancipatory politics?

The conference will be devoted to this broad range of topics, from core theoretical notions of Fichte's philosophy to their practical implications for contemporary political debates. Scholars are invited to submit their proposals for papers addressing these themes.

Invited speakers: Petra Lohmann, Gesa Wellmann, Jean Quétier, Roberta Picardi, Lucas Damian Scarfia, Gaetano Rametta, Manja Kisner, Plato Tse, Taiju Okochi, Jimena Solé.

Submission Guidelines:

Submission deadline: October 1st, 2025

Notification of acceptance: by October 30th, 2025

Presentation time will be 25 minutes.

Conference languages: German and English

Abstracts (no more than 500 words) should be sent as an attachment to [[email protected]]

Abstracts should be prepared for double-blind review by removing any identification details. The author’s name, paper title, institutional position, and affiliation, as well as contact information and a short CV, should be included in the body of the e-mail, with “Submission Fichte: Determination, Intersubjectivity and the State” in the subject line.

We understand that some potential participants may have financial constraints, and therefore, a small number of stipends will be available to help with conference expenses.

The conference is organized by the Ljubljana Research Group for Classical German Philosophy, in collaboration with Luca Illetterati (University of Padua), Jimena Solé (University of Buenos Aires), Taiju Okochi (University of Kyoto), Frank Fischbach (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), and Zdravko Kobe (University of Ljubljana).