Abstract

In his System of the Theory of Science (Wissenschaftslehre) Fichte develops a farreaching and elaborately structured theory of sentiments which he puts at thedisposal of the self-enlightenment of the subject. This theory comprises the areas of theoretical, aesthetic, practical, sensual, intellectual, and intelligible life. Thesystematic track of the inquiry develops genesis, disposition, and function of the notion of sentiment in the Wissenschaftslehre and ist disciplines. From a historicalpoint of view Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre is placed in its contemporary context (Neology, Philanthropism, Hommel, Kant, Jacobi). Its systematic and historicalaims are, seperated following their either genetic or factual coinage, traced from the genesis in the early writings unto the Wissenschaftslehre of 1801 and areunfolded parallel from an evolutionary perspective.