Abstract
German idealism is a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, developing from the work of Kant. It is closely linked to Romanticism and the Enlightenment, and is also known as post-Kantian idealism. The movement posits that the true objects of knowledge are mind-dependent. Kant’s “transcendental idealism” emphasizes the mind’s role in structuring experience, suggesting that the external world as it is in itself is unknowable. His successors, including Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, built upon this, often developing forms of “absolute idealism” where reality is fundamentally mental. Key figures like Jacobi, Reinhold, Schulze, and Maimon contributed by criticizing or refining Kant’s ideas, particularly regarding the concept of the “thing-in-itself” and the relationship between the subject and object.