An Indispensable Book in understanding German Idealism, particulary Fichte's Idealism. This Book is a must for students of Fichte's thought and readers of his "Science of Knowledge" and "Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy".
Ashraf Mansour, University of Alexandria, Egypt.

Comprehensive, deep, perhaps even intellectually orgasimic. The Science of Knowledge contains the most stunning criticisms, elaborations, and evolutions of the Kantian line. Anyone who is disenchanted with modern philsophy and thinks that critical metaphysics is dead should read this book first. Practically every significant problem that is posed in modern philsophy of mind is addressed and solved! Fichte's Transcendental Idealism should become a western Zen Mantra!

Oh yeah, and follow the white rabbit.

While the above review is of course very helpful, potential buyers and readers may want to know from someone who has actually read the book that it is indeed excellent. Neuhauser's book is in fact a "must-read" for anyone looking for a clear, well-written, and theoretically-informed treatment of Fichte's cryptic but groundbreaking account of self-consciousness. Readers with a healthy background in Kant will benefit most from the book. However, it is not written for specialists in the field. Anyone interested in understanding some of the basic moves in post-Kantian idealism would do well to start here.

I actually haven't read this book but Professor Neuhouser is my writing professor at the university I go to and he is a wonderful writer and wonderful philosopher. All of his ideas he presents to us in class are well-formulated and thought out and he cultivates this same thought and philosophy in us. I am going to read this book as soon as I have a chance.

All it took to get Fichte to collapse into a claim that he was merely a philosopher by 1800, when he wrote a few of his defenses in this book, was the charge that he was being atheistic in his faith in a moral world order rather than the kind of proofs of God that Kant had found unconvincing. His ideas about a moral world order make more sense to me as a philosophy than the concepts that make up more of this book. In our time, being considered an atheist has its defenders among those who consider themselves as respectable as other people, so I can't sympathize with those educated people who believe that God can't be defined in a moral way. There still is a tendency to condemn individuals for clinging to their own views, and Fichte's admission that any minister who declared from the pulpit that Fichte now has it right, while the church has been wrong all these years, could be removed from his pulpit for official incompetence. Philosophy is not really being defended against much when the main defense is that it is just a philosophy. The moral world order may be even less believable now, since Kafka and Walter Kaufmann in EXISTENTIALISM FROM DOSTOEVSKY TO SARTRE declare that the moral order is based on a lie. Fichte is lucky he didn't try saying that in 1800.

Breazeale,perhaps the foremost Fichte scholar in the English speaking world, gives a lucid translation of Fichte's classic, but sadly, underexamined work. Most notably, Breazeale's informative introduction provides the reader with a synopsis of Fichtean thought and the historical background in which it developed. Will be of interest to anyone interested in German philosophy after Kant. Highly recommended.

A landmark work for those charting Sallis' decay from solid Plato commentator to Pope of SPEP/Perugia farce. The introductory section stakes Sallis' claim to be the worst unintentional parodist of Derrida's style. It's so perfectly funny that my friends and I would sometimes read it aloud after inhaling helium or speak it through a fan on high setting. Why did we do it? Try reading the book _without_ these distortions and see if YOU can keep a straight face!