Doxographical wisdom has it that Fichte is the “philosopher of the I.” Such stereotypical characterization is usually accompanied by the reminder that Fichte possessed an ego worthy of his philosophical subject matter, a biographical fact that made him an easy target for satirical portrayal through friend and foe. Yet hidden behind the double screen of schematic labeling and smart caricature lies a powerful philosophical oeuvre marked by a singular blend of speculative enthusiasm and analytic rigor. To be sure, Fichte is not easy to understand; worse yet, Fichte is easy to misunderstand. He eschewed established philosophical terminology, continued to modify and revise the presentation of his philosophical position throughout his lifetime and made unprecedented demands for sustained concentration on the listeners of his lectures and the readers of his works.

So, why study an author as dark and difficult as Fichte? The answer is, in short, that in his theorizing about the I, Fichte made a number of methodological and substantial contributions to our understanding of the human mind and its relation to the physical and moral world that have lost nothing of their originality and intellectual power. This chapter is intended to convey some of that originality and power by presenting the main lines of Fichte's thinking on the I during his Jena period. During those years Fichte published the works that established his reputation as the foremost successor to Kant and as the instigator of the post-Kantian philosophical tradition known as German idealism.