Basic Notions of Metaphysics: System, pt.1

In our day and age, the word "system" is as prevalent as it is ambivalent; moreover, bearing in mind that we are living in an epoch supposedly deprived of metaphysics, 'system' sometimes appears to be an ersatz formula for something that used to be a metaphysical notion. However, no age is free from metaphysics and 'system' is a metaphysical notion tailor made by modernity for modernity, and beyond. In this podcast we'll trace the genesis of the system principle and contrast it to traditional metaphysics, to which the system is as repugnant as it gets, although its very rarely perceived as such by contemporary historians and philosophers. In this episode we take an example of system building thinking from early German Idealism, from J.G. Fichte's Wissenschaftlehre.