Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher and a central figure of the movement known as German Idealism, which sought to derive all knowledge from the activity of the thinking self. Building on and departing from Immanuel Kant, his Wissenschaftslehre ("Doctrine of Science," 1794) made the free, self-positing "I" the foundation of experience. He taught at Jena until charges of atheism forced his departure in 1799, then settled in Berlin. During the Napoleonic occupation he delivered his "Addresses to the German Nation" (1807-08). In 1811 he was elected the first rector of the newly founded University of Berlin (opened 1810, where he had been dean of the philosophy faculty from 1810), a post he resigned in early 1812; he taught there until his death.