Fichte's conception of a pragmatic history of the human spirit is usually taken to be his phenomenological method as differing from the apagogic dialectic as his constructive method. It is argued in this paper that the former is rooted in a concept of the I resulting from a radicalized concept of freedom. The analysis of what Fichte says about the apagogic dialectic, the pragmatic history of the human spirit, dogmatism and idealism yet reveals that he fails to justify the methodological distinction between the phenomenological observation and construction, which makes the concept of the I questionable that is the foundation of the distinction.