ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how radically J. G. Fichte departs from traditional approaches to the central problems of political philosophy. It describes a standard conception of contractarian strategies in political philosophy, and discusses a preliminary survey of the conflicting evidence regarding Fichte’s commitment to such strategies. The chapter suggests that interpretative strategy for resolving the tensions that emerge in that survey and draws on a claim from Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of intersubjectivity to suggest the shape of Fichte’s alternative to the contractarian approach. It deals with a brief characterization of social contract approaches in political philosophy. In particular, a social contract theory is one which finds the basis of civic authority in an implicit contract in virtue of which the members of a community agree to terms by which each can benefit from the fruits of social cooperation. In short, Fichte’s deduction of natural right is carried out entirely without reliance on the notion of a social contract.
