Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762–1814), German philosopher and metaphysician. At first a disciple of Kant, he became an early exponent of ethical idealism and set forth a science connecting practical reason with pure reason and the individual ego with an absolute ego (moral will of the universe). His work, including The Vocation of Man (1800), influenced G.W.F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Freidrich Schelling, among others. His political theories, including his concept of the nation as a manifestation of divine order and as expressed in his Address to the German People (1808), stimulated German nationalism and won him great respect among the revolutionaries of 1848.

See also: Metaphysics; Philosophy.