Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Gesamtausgabe / Reihe I: Werke. Band 8: Werke 1801–1806

In addition to some of Fichte's most successful poems (from the ›Musenalmanachen‹ of 1801/02 and 1805), a public declaration against the publisher Gabler concerning the controversy over the second edition of the ›Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre‹ (1802), and announcements of lectures that appeared in Berlin newspapers (1804-06), this volume also contains ›Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten und seine Erscheinungen im Gebiete der Freiheit‹ (published in 1806), a text intended as a propaedeutic general introduction to all of the writings Fichte prepared in conjunction with his activities as a teacher in Erlangen (May-September 1805). (The latter texts are published in Series II, Volume 9.) – But the major work contained in this volume is ›Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters‹ which represents Fichte's first foray into the philosophy of history, which he worked on intensively in the years 1804–1808. This text is the published version of the public lectures he held in Berlin in the winter semester of 1804/05 and which he described as a »philosophical characterization of the age«. The appendix (which follows the text published in 1802 in ›Eleusinien des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts‹) contains ›Philosophie der Mauererei. Briefe an Konstant‹, which is based upon Fichte's lectures to the Berlin Lodge in October 1799 and April/May 1800. In this text Fichte articulates his own view of what Freemasonry should be.