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For the first time in Fichte scholarship, Traub offers an account of the influence of pietistic ideas on Fichte´s philosophy and his academic and political self-image. Evidence of this is, for example, Fichte´s personalisation and popularisation of the knowledge of faith, the culture of internal moral theological and rational self-examination, or the primacy of "praxis pietatis". The analysis focuses on the little investigated denominational aspects of Fichte´s early education: in his family and upbringing, in school and university. Especially with Fichte´s early work on Dogmatics and Christology, Traub proves that Fichte´s theology and philosophy had - far before reading Kant - a firm denominational orientation that must be taken into account for any appropriate understanding of his later philosophy.

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