This book, first published in 2001, is a biographical study of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

With renewed attention to German idealism in general and to Fichte in particular, this timely collection of new papers will be of interest to anyone concerned with transcendental philosophy, German idealism, modern German philosophy and transcendental arguments.

"This work is a model of what a philosophical text should be."--Reinhard Lauth "Breazeale's translation is fluent, precise, and perhaps most important of all... it is readable.... This is an excellent translation by the ranking Fichte scholar working in English at present, accompanied by a full, useful scholarly apparatus, likely to be of interest to Fichte scholars and all those concerned with the development of German idealism."--Review of Metaphysics "The publishing of this volume in English... provides us with a wealth of new material, not just about Fichte's development, but about the essentially Cartesian project that first gave rise to phenomenology in our own century."--International Philosophical Quarterly

The Wissenschaftslehre or "doctrine of science" was the great achievement of the German idealist philosopher J. G. Fichte. Daniel Breazeale presents accessible new translations of three works in which Fichte developed this philosophical system. The centerpiece of this volume is a new English translation of Fichte's only full-scale presentation of the principles of his philosophy, the Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (1794/95). Accompanying this are new translations of the work in which Fichte first publicly introduced his new system, Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre (1794) and the Outline of what is Distinctive of the Wissenschaftslehre with respect to the Theoretical Power (1795), which was intended as a companion to the Foundation. In addition Breazeale includes the transcripts of Fichte's unpublished "Zurich lectures" on his system (1794), translated here for the first time in English. Breazeale supplements his translations with an extensive historical and systematic introduction, detailed outlines of the contents and structure of the Foundation and Outline, and copious scholarly annotation of the translated texts, helping to orient readers who may otherwise find themselves lost in the wilderness of Fichte's complex "derivations."

German Idealism was one of the most fertile and important movements in the history of Western philosophy. This volume includes eleven chapters on all aspects and the period's most influential philosophers, including Kant and Hegel.

What exactly is tradition? Stephen H. Watson provides a fine-grained account of tradition that draws on Gadamer, who conceives of tradition in terms of continuity, and Foucault, who engages in critique through the presentation of difference. Tradition(s) accomplishes this through a series of original readings of Kant and post-Kantian German philosophy.

The theme of a oeInstitutions of Education: then and todaya not only corresponds with the basic questions raised in German Idealism, but is also central to the question of whether it is legitimate to study German Idealism in our era. Elaborating on this project immediately raises the problem of institutional differentiation, which characterizes multicultural society. Does the variety of educational institutions not, by definition, exclude the shared conception and realization of adulthood that is presupposed by German Idealism? This book shows that German Idealism can still participate in the contemporary debate on education: it is not only helpful in raising relevant questions, but can also be transformed into positions which can deal with the pluriformity that characterizes contemporary society.