Abstract

This book, first published in 2001, is a biography of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte from birth to his resignation from his university position at Jena in 1799 due to the Atheism Conflict, this work explains how Fichte contributed to modern conceptions of selfhood; how he sought to make the moral agency of the self efficacious in a modern public culture; and the critical role he assigned philosophy in the construal and assertion of selfhood and in the creation of a new public sphere. Using the writings and private papers now available in the Gesamtausgabe, the study historicises these themes by tracing their development within several contexts, including the German Lutheran tradition, the eighteenth-century culture of sensibility, the Kantian philosophical revolution, the politics of the revolutionary era, and the emergence of modern German universities. It includes a reinterpretation of Fichte's political theory and philosophy of law, his anti-Semitism, and his controversial views on gender and marriage.