Characteristics Lectures by Fichte
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~120,000 words · 575 passages
Cite this work
- APAJohann Fichte. (n.d.). Characteristics Lectures by Fichte. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/johann-fichte/characteristics-lectures-by-fichte
- MLAJohann Fichte. Characteristics Lectures by Fichte. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/johann-fichte/characteristics-lectures-by-fichte.
- ChicagoJohann Fichte. Characteristics Lectures by Fichte. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/johann-fichte/characteristics-lectures-by-fichte.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The lectures Fichte gave in Berlin in the winter of 1804-05 on what moment of history we are living in: 'The Characteristics of the Present Age'.
Context and history
Fichte divides human history into five ages according to their relation to reason: reason as instinct, external authority, liberation from all authority — where he places his own time — science, and the art of living according to reason. He calls the third 'the state of completed sinfulness', and this is the core of his criticism: an age that has destroyed all authority without yet having reached any knowledge of its own, and which therefore believes nothing. These are public lectures and can be followed without having read the 'Wissenschaftslehre', which is another order of difficulty altogether. Three years later would come the 'Addresses to the German Nation', also in the corpus.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
opportunity, should exert all his powers for this end, were it only for his own sake, and in order to maintain the place which has been assigned to him in the ever-flowing current of existence. For the rest, Time rolls on in the steadfast