Fichte: The Self and the Calling of Philosophy, 1762–1799

by Anthony J. La Vopa

In this biographical study of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte from his birth in 1762 to the crisis in his university career in 1799, Professor La Vopa uses Fichte's life and thought to deepen our understanding of German society, culture, and politics in the age of the French Revolution. This is the first biography to explain thoroughly how Fichte's philosophy relates to his life experiences as reconstructed from the abundant material in his published and unpublished writings and papers. The approach is primarily historical, but should be of interest to philosophers.

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[marcel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, while first and foremost a historico-biographical work, is probably intended for an audience well versed in philosophy and well acquainted with different philosophers contemporary to Fichte and (the rudiments of) their philosophies. As someone jumping into this with zero prior knowledge of Fichte, I appreciated that the recounting of his life events were cleanly interspersed with philosophical background, so I could follow the thread of the former without fully understanding the latter. That said, I feel I learned a lot about philosophy as well (there is a lot of exposition about Kant and idealism in general). The introduction and conclusion are fairly easy to read, and one could easily get a gist of the whole book by just reading those two sections.

Difficult, somewhat niche, but ultimately rewarding.