Philosopher of the Wissenschaftslehre who derived all knowledge from the activity of the I; speaker of the Addresses to the German Nation
Born in 1762 to a poor ribbon weaver's family at Rammenau in Saxony, he became famous when his anonymous Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792), first taken for Kant's work, was set right, and in 1794 he took a chair at Jena. In the Foundations of the Science of Knowledge (1794/95) he started from Kant and sought to derive all knowledge from the activity of the I, treating even the not-I as posited by the I. Dismissed from Jena for atheism in 1799, he gave the Addresses to the German Nation (1807–1808) in French-occupied Berlin. He became professor at the new University of Berlin in 1810 and its rector the next year, and died of typhus in 1814. Kant denounced him publicly, and Schelling drifted away from him from 1801.
Activities and affiliations
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1794–1799
Germany state institutionsProfessor of philosophy, University of JenaMain
Scholarship and theory -
1805–
Germany state institutionsProfessor at the University of Erlangen
Scholarship and theory -
1810–1814
Germany state institutionsProfessor of philosophy, University of Berlin
Scholarship and theory -
1811–
Germany state institutionsRector of the University of Berlin
Education
Career Timeline
- 1780Studied theology at Jena
- 1792Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, published anonymously
- 1794Foundations of the Science of Knowledge
- 1794–1799Professor of philosophy at Jena
- 1799Dismissed from Jena for atheism
- 1805Professor at Erlangen
- 1807–1808Addresses to the German Nation
- 1810–1814Professor of philosophy at Berlin
- 1811Rector of the University of Berlin