Fichte: Addresses to the German Nation

Gregory Moore

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780521444040
• eBook ISBN:
  9780511460111
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This is the first translation of Fichte's addresses to the German nation for almost 100 years. The series of 14 speeches, delivered whilst Berlin was under French occupation after Prussia's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Jena in 1806, is widely regarded as a founding document of German nationalism, celebrated and reviled in equal measure. Fichte's account of the distinctiveness of the German people and his belief in the native superiority of its culture helped to shape German national identity throughout the nineteenth century and beyond. With an extensive introduction that puts Fichte's argument in its intellectual and historical context, this edition brings an important and seminal work to a modern readership. All of the usual series features are provided, including notes for further reading, chronology, and brief biographies of key individuals.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series-title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chronology
• Note on the text and translation
• Suggestions for further reading
• Abbreviations
• Addresses to the German Nation
• Foreword
• First Address: Preliminary remarks and overview
• Second address: On the nature of the new education in general
• Third address: Description of the new education – continued
• Fourth address: The principal difference between the Germans and other peoples of Teutonic descent
• Fifth address: Consequences of the difference that has been advanced
• Sixth address: Exposition of German characteristics in history
• Seventh Address: A yet deeper understanding of the originality and Germanness of a people
• Eighth address: What a people is in the higher sense of the word and what is love of fatherland
• Ninth address: At what point existing in reality the new national education of the Germans will begin
• Tenth address: Towards a more exact definition of the German national education
• Eleventh Address: On whom the execution of this plan of education will devolve
• Twelfth address: On the means of maintaining ourselves until we achieve our principal purpose
• Contents of the thirteenth address: Continuation of the reflections already begun
• Fourteenth address: Conclusion of the whole
• Glossary
• Index
• CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT