Fichte, Johann Gottlieb

Johann Gottlieb (1762-1814), a German philosopher. He was born at Rammenau. He studied at Jena, Leipsic, and Wittenberg and became a private tutor. In 1793 he became professor of philosophy at Jena and was one of the most celebrated professors of that university during the time when it was most noted. On account of certain publications he was suspected of atheism, and, as a result of an inquiry, he resigned his professorship. Later he was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin. Fichte's system was founded at first upon that of Kant, but gradually took a somewhat different direction. His philosophy may be regarded as pure idealism. He maintained that the "ego," the "I,"--the thinking soul--is the only reality; everything else is illusion, or at least may be illusion; we cannot be certain that there is any outside world. The senses are not to be trusted as a means of obtaining knowledge. Fichte was a man of the strictest integrity and of the noblest impulses. It was his constant aim to make his generation better, to incite his pupils to form high ideals, and to lead lives of loyalty and self denial, teaching them, as he did, the absolute omnipotence of the human will. See Kant; Schelling