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This paper discusses Fichte’s doctrine of resistance as a phenomenon of transition from the early modern concept of sovereignty to the constitutional state of rule of law. Therefor in particular the doctrine of the Ephorat, in the version of Grundlage des Naturrechts, in its context of development, is interpreted as a constitutional self-limitation of political power, which is to preserve both the sovereign claim of identity and the constitutional claim of control. This thesis is developed in opposition to Kant and Hegel and in dependence on Condorcet’s project of a constitution. Whereas Kant and Hegel discuss the right to resist on the basis of a traditional concept of sovereignty and – in spite of all oppositional interpretations – reject it, Fichte tries to develop in dependence on the French discussion on the constitution the theory of a juridical practice which allows to save the identity of law even in the case of conflict. The intention of the juridical structure of this practice can be found in the constitutional forms of self-limitation of modern states.
Classical German Philosophy belongs to the heritage of the European philosophical tradition, in which philosophical knowledge is defined as an epistemological reflection. Philosophy reflects on scientific knowledge to demonstrate its possibility. Thus objective knowledge is defined as a system whose principle is subjectivity. Since the 19th century, this concept of knowledge has been questioned as has subjectivity as such. Since then, philosophy in Germany has departed from comprehensive reflection and turned towards matters of detail or issues of application. In this paper I argue that the trend of skepticism about knowledge in modern German philosophy is associated with the radical social upheavals of modernity, but without being accompanied by a critical understanding of these upheavals. The first task is to reconstruct the classical concept of knowledge as it appeared in German philosophy, including its crucial relation to scientific knowledge and to history. The second task is to engage with the observation that this tradition of thought is in danger of being lost today. I will point out the role which the linguistic turn in philosophy has played and the means of deconstructing it.