Johann Gottlieb Fichte
German philosopher, 1762-1814
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Like Descartes and Kant before him, he was motivated by the problem of subjectivity and consciousness. Fichte also wrote works of political philosophy; he has a reputation as one of the fathers of German nationalism.
Source: Wikipedia
Philosoph (1762-1814). Autograph letter signed. Berlin. 4to. 4 pp. Doppelblatt.
$ 13,954 / 12.000 €
(94708)
Extensive letter to Gottlieb Hufeland (1760–1817), professor of law in Jena and one of the editors of the Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung, who had invited Fichte to contribute to the journal. The first, shorter part of the letter expresses Fichte's gratitude for this invitation. The main portion concerns Fichte's work Critique of All Revelation, published in 1792, which had been mistakenly issued without the author's name and was thus attributed to Kant. During the literary controversies that followed, Hufeland had taken Fichte's side. *"No thanks for your courageous and, to me, infinitely honorable defense of my work against the spiteful attack of the anonymous correspondent in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek! You did what you recognized as right, noble man — may your heart reward you! But what must you now feel in the face of the new, raging attack from the reviewer… It pains me, deeply pains me, to be the innocent cause of a literary feud carried out in such a tone.
The entirely innocent cause — I had attached my name and a modest preface to the work, which my publisher omitted at first… And now the reviewer has the malicious audacity to claim that I deliberately imitated Kant’s style to play a joke on the public! Should one not best answer such insolence with silent contempt? That is my resolution. The honor of everyone involved in this matter will, I believe, depend on whether I can uphold my theory or not. The reviewer’s objections are all based on a blatant distortion of my deduction of the concept of revelation, which he presents as objectively valid, in order to place me in the most obvious contradiction with the subsequent claim that no proof for the reality of revelation can be provided. A few more contributions to the history of this flattering — yet so enraging to my opponents — confusion: A man who ought to know what is Kantian, if anyone does" (likely Johann Friedrich Schultz), "said long before my manuscript was printed that he foresaw the possibility of such a confusion. One of our most renowned theologians" (probably Franz Volkmar Reinhard) "writes to me that he too attributed the work to Kant… Kant himself, in a letter to me, called both the work and its review in the Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung thorough; and it was certainly not his intention to harm either the then-unknown reviewer" (Hufeland) "or me by revealing my name, as the reviewer maliciously insinuates…".
sold
Eigenh. Brief mit U.
Autograph ist nicht mehr verfügbar
To the Berlin bookseller and publisher Georg Reimer, whom he asks for financial support of a friend: “[…] I came to you, partly to give you the enclosed letter from Gabler in Jena and see whether, as it seems likely from the letter I received myself, the contents of the same require a personal meeting between you and me. Partly, however, I also came on account of a very dear and interesting friend, who will be leaving tomorrow evening, and who has requested me to sell the enclosed bill of exchange (the handwriting of the issuer being known to me). Potential buyer whom he has offered it would prefer to wait for notice first, which the owner cannot expect. I must help and cannot without (at least possibly) embarrassing myself financially. I thought of you. Perhaps you can help more easily. – I expect your answer in this matter as soon as possible […] Please forgive this last letter by the unaccustomed pen.” – Reimer published Fichte’s works since 1801. In 1799, Fichte had been dismissed from his chair at the University of Jena and had moved to Berlin, where he lived independently as a scholar.
Eigenh. Brief m. U.
Autograph ist nicht mehr verfügbar
Extensive letter to Gottlieb Hufeland (1760-1817), Professor of Law in Jena and one of the editors of “Allgemeine Literaturzeitung”, who asked Fichte for cooperation. The main part of the letter concerns Fichte’s script “Vermerk einer Kritik aller Offenbarung“ (1792), which was printed without the name of the author and was incorrectly attributed to Kant.
Eigenh. Brief mit wiederholter Unterschrift. („Fichte“).
Autograph ist nicht mehr verfügbar