The Right to Education in the Fichtean Theory of Natural Right

Abstract

Johann Gottlieb Fichte became famous because of his Reden an die deutsche Nation, where he articulates a series of ideas about the formation of the German people. However, this is not the only place where Fichte has considered the problem of education for citizens.We can go back to his first years in Jena to find his early systematic pedagogical thoughts on the matter. The education problem was considered in Fichte’s Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Prinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre, which was published between 1796 and 1797 and not studied enough by scholars. It is paradoxical because the problem of education is a crucial and systematic moment in the theory, given that here is where the inconsistency between the recognition theory and the applied right comes to light. That is to say, while the recognition theory implies a thick conception of education, the theory of the state puts it into the hands of the family; as a result, education is not guaranteed to all the citizens.