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17 The first and still unsurpassed description of this paradox was perhaps Fichte's notion of Anstoss, the "obstacle/impetus" which sets in motion the subject's productive effort to "posit" objective reality; no longer the Kantian Thing-in-itself-an external stimulus affecting the subject from outside-the Anstoss is a kernel of contingency which is extimate: a foreign body in the very heart of the subject. Subjectivity is thus defined not by a struggle against the inertia of the opposing substantial order but by an absolutely inherent tension.