Fichte: On the social engagement of intellectuals.

In this paper I attempt at critically analyse Fichte's conception of intellectuals and intellectual intervention by focussing on the question about the moral and non-philosophical origins of these concepts. In order to prepare the mentioned genealogic analysis: i) I expose what I would like to call the populist or democratic spirit of Fichte's philosophy; ii) I show at what extent the intellectual intervention is essential to the idea of the doctrine of science; iii) I proceed to a reconstruction of Fichte's concept of the intellectual based on the argument that the intellectual intervention is the differentia specifica of this concept; and, finally, iv) I present a genetic deduction of the concept of the intellectual based on Fichte's theory of drives.