Educación al revés de la letra en las Lecciones Sexta y Séptima de los Grundzüge (1806)

Fichte deals, in the Sixth and Seventh Lessons of the Characteristics of the Present Age [Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters, 1806], with an important question concerning the interval between two periods or ages, the third and fourth ages of humanity, in its relation of opposition and complementarity. For him, the time had come to prepare the necessary transition from the third to the fourth age of humanity, since the third represented a false autonomy acquired by the letter (by the press) in relation to the spirit, which was the true source of vitality in human affairs from its initial setting, oral communication. We briefly contextualize the theme of the criteria of reading that the true science of reason presupposes in order to reach the fourth age of humanity, as a requirement that points to the elucidation of this moment before the letter itself (in written or printed discourse) in which oral communication is generated in the dimension of the spirit, as a truly living activity that meets the needs of thought, whether philosophical or literary, in society.