Abstract

For the first time in Fichte scholarship, Traub offers an account of the influence of pietistic ideas on Fichte’s philosophy and his academic and political self-image. Evidence of this is, for example, Fichte’s personalisation and popularisation of the knowledge of faith, the culture of internal moral theological and rational self-examination, or the primacy of »praxis pietatis«. The analysis focuses on the little investigated denominational aspects of Fichte’s early education: in his family and upbringing, in school and university. Especially with Fichte’s early work on Dogmatics and Christology, Traub proves that Fichte’s theology and philosophy had – far before reading Kant – a firm denominational orientation that must be taken into account for any appropriate understanding of his later philosophy.