Abstract This paper attempts to explore the question of universality and historical contingency in the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte with special regard to the performative dimensions of the Wissenschaftslehre and the Addresses to the German Nation (1807–08). It argues that Fichte’s Aufforderung (summons) in the Foundations of Natural Right (1796–97) attempts to establish intersubjectivity in normative aspiration to universal ethics, and its use in public pedagogy is, however, fraught with the danger of national particularism in the construction of recognition. This is part of the reason that Fichte is discussed together with Shāh Walīullāh al-Dehlawī’s Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha and Al-Budūr al-Bāzigha, which derive universality from the unity of God (tawḥīd) and the aims of God’s law ( maqāṣid al-sharīʿa ) as expressed in the institutions of Zakāt , ḥisbah , and khilāfah . The study finds asymmetrical vulnerabilities in the cases: Fichte’s subjective performance is open to particularism, and in the case of Walīullāh, the juridical model suffers from the lack of interpretative contingency of the Mughal period. Hence, the major conclusions of the study are: Fichte should be recast and the nationalist readings stripped away, then the Habermasian discourse ethics and decolonial critiques and post-Kantian comparative philosophy can be advanced with Fichte’s rethinking of universal ethics through contextual mediations. The paper fosters the dialogue on the restrictions of idealism and the qualifications of the risks to universality on both systems.
Zafar Iqbal (Thu,) studied this question.