Maimon, reader of Fichte

This article reexamines the correspondence between Maimon and Fichte, which testifies to their great intellectual proximity. Maimon’s interest in the idea of a system as developed in Fichte’s Begriffsschrift (where Fichte seeks to avoid the trap of a philosophy of representation) led him to moderate his criticism of systematic philosophy. The opposite direction of their research, far from indicating a misunderstanding on Maimon’s part of the doctrine of science (a misunderstanding commonly attributed to him), is on the contrary a sign that Maimon was one of Fichte’s best readers, as Fichte himself did not fail to notice. However, the fact that Maimon focused on the problem of passing from one region of knowledge to another indicates that he remained deeply rooted in a Kantian vision of philosophy and did not adhere to the unified theory of knowledge proposed by the doctrine of science.