Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher who developed Kant's critical philosophy in a radically subjective direction, placing the self-positing "I" at the foundation of all reality and knowledge. His Wissenschaftslehre argued that the ego is not simply a knowing subject but the very ground of being, from which the external world is derived as a necessary condition of self-consciousness. His Addresses to the German Nation, delivered in Berlin under French occupation, made him a founding figure of German nationalism.