ADVOCATING GERMAN NATIONALISM

FICHTE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB.

Reden an die deutsche Nation.

Berlin, 1808.

8vo. Contemporary brown half calf with gilt title-label to spine. Upper capital missing a small piece of leather on top right corner of the spine and cracks to the hinges. Small worm holes to corners, top corner of front board restored. Some browning and brownspotting due to the quality of the paper. Crossed-out name to front free end-paper, otherwise no markings or notes. 490, (1) pp.

First edition of Fichte's "Addresses to the German Nation" (Reden an die deutsche Nation), a compilation of speeches he delivered in 1807 in Berlin, under the Napoleonic rule. It was an attemt to unite a German nation capable of resistance, while several new philosophical concepts were introduced, including the idea of a nation as a collective entity capable of generating individual duties. Fichte left Berlin after the Battle of Jena in 1806, leaving for Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad) and fleeing on to Copenhagen. He returned to Berlin in 1807, where he held the speeches. (Neuhann 2025; Høffding 1899).

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) was of one of the founding thinkers of German idealism. He is considered seminal philosopher in at least two respects: as the uniter of the ideas of the two great - Kant and Hegel - and as an important philosopher in himself, who has contributed originally to the philosophy of the self. By some he is considered the father of German nationalism.

Order-nr.: 63357