Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) was born in Rammenau, a village in Upper (Saxon) Lusatia, the sone of a farmer and linen-maker. he attended the universities of Jena and Leipzig and then worked as a tutor in Zürich. Although his first work, "Aphorisms on Religion and God," (1790) owed much to Spinoza"s determinism, the main influence on him was Kant, whom he visited in Kšningsberg. Kant agreed to read Fichte's next manuscript, Essay Toward a Critique of All Revelation (1792). Deeply impressed, Kant sent the manuscript to a publisher on Fichte's behalf. When due to a printer's error the book appeared without Fichte's name or preface, everyone assumed it had been written by Kant! Kant published a retraction stating that the work was Fichte's, not his, adding that the book also just happens to solve a major problem with Kant's system that Kant himself had found insoluble. Fichte's reputation was instantly secured.

bio by Daniel Kolak in Lovers of Wisdom
(Wadsworth, 1997)