Fries, Jakob Friedrich(1773–1843)
Jakob Friedrich Fries, the German critical philosopher, was born in Barby, Saxony. An avowed follower and elaborator of Immanuel Kant's philosophy, Fries emphasized the analytical, descriptive, and methodological aspects of the critical philosophy as against the constructive and speculative idealism of such contemporaries as K. L. Reinhold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, and G. W. F. Hegel. He received his secondary and college education at the Moravian Academy in Niesky. From his Pietistic Moravian background Fries preserved a conviction of the importance of "pure feeling" as a manifestation of "the infinite in the finite." At Niesky he was given a thorough grounding in mathematics and in the natural sciences. There he was also introduced to a version of Kant's philosophy based on Reinhold's, which he early sought to correct and supplement by secretly reading in Kant's own writings. In 1795 he went to Leipzig, where he studied under the philosopher-physician Ernst Plattner.
The influence of Plattner and of F. H. Jacobi accounts for Fries's emphasis on the concept of self-observation. From 1797 on, Fries continued his studies in mathematics and physics at Jena, where he also attended Fichte's lectures. "I listened to Fichte, took notes, then rushed home and wrote rebuttals," he later recalled.
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