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This paper analyzes Fichte's series of lectures entitled, "Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation." These lectures were delivered during the summer of 1794 at the University of Jena. Fichte's conclusion in his fourth, and final, lecture in the series is that "the final aim of every individual person, as well as of society as a whole, and thus the final aim of all of the scholar's work for society is the ethical improvement of the whole person." However, such a statement does not exist in a vacuum; it arises through a series of considerations that branch out far beyond the life or direct influence of the individual scholar. Fichte devotes a substantial portion of these lectures to exploring the vocation of human beings in general, the vocation of society as a whole, and the presence of classes within society. It is only upon considering all of these that Fichte can adequately formulate the vocation of the scholar. It is this very method that is explored in this paper. Fichte places the vocation of the scholar within a much broader framework of human nature and the way such a nature is meant to function within a society. The scholar is one who arises from a context and, as such, has a sense of duty to be operative in improving that context. This can be contrasted from the view that a scholar exists in a kind of solipsistic universe in which his or her works are purely theoretical and, as such, may or may not apply to the reality of human living. Rather, the very nature of the scholar's vocation is one that genuinely informs human living; the scholar's work is always embedded and operative within a context, and consequently, the intrinsic connection between scholarship and society is strongly reinforced through this examination of Fichte's lectures.
Keywords: Practical reason, German Idealism, philosophy, society.
INTRODUCTION
In the summer of 1794, Johann Gottlieb Fichte delivered a series of lectures at the University of Jena that were published later that year under the title Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation. Throughout the series of lectures, Fichte lays out what he believes to be the ultimate aim, or vocation, of the scholarly life. However, only the fourth of these lectures...