He formulated an educational philosophy that combined private scholarship with a public calling, and as rector of the newly founded University of Berlin--the first modern university--he was the very embodiment of ethical (if autocratic) idealism. Finally, he articulated a potent and high-minded patriotism in his celebrated
Reden an die deutsche Nation (1808; translated as
Addresses to the German Nation, 1923). He was, then, a philosopher for his times, whether these times are taken as revolutionary or as Napoleonic.
Fichte published works both of technical philosophy and of "popular philosophy." After 1800 he tended to publish only the latter; although he continued to lecture on the Wissenschaftslehre (science of knowledge), he came to feel that a written format allowed too much distortion by hostile readers--distortion that continues to this day. Fichte was--and is--too easily portrayed as a subjective idealist, reducing everything and everyone to his own ego. "Und das läBt Madame Fichte so hin"" (And Madame Fichte doesn't mind"), Heinrich Heine imagines people protesting, then rightly counters that the Fichtean ego is not individual--that is, Fichte himself--but universal, a "Welt-Ich" (world-ego).
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