Abstract

This handsome volume contains Fichte’s preparatory, supplementary, and popular writings about the first version of the Wissenschaftslehre, together with a very judicious selection from his philosophical correspondence in the decade 1790-99. Anyone who puts it on the shelf beside the Heath-Lachs translation of the 1794 lecture script and the two 1797 “Introductions” can now be confident of possessing in excellent and accurate English all of Fichte’s theoretical discussions of the philosophical view that made him both famous and immensely influential in the development of German idealism. His later thought remains still the private preserve of a few German-reading specialists; and we need good modern translations of his practical philosophy: Foundation of Natural Right and System of Ethical Theory. But his Theory of Scientific Knowledge we do now have.