Abstract

This essay attempts at elucidating the relationships between cosmopolitanism and nationalism and between State and Nation in Fichte’s thought on the basis of the new evidence provided by the critical edition of his works. The analysis of the Reden an die deutsche Nation highlights the ambiguity of the concept of Nation, strictly connected to the thesis of the primacy of Germans. This position is discussed in the light of the reflections devoted to this matter by Fichte in his last months of life, as recorded in his diary