Friedrich Karl Forberg (30 August 1770, Meuselwitz – 1 January 1848, Hildburghausen) was a German philosopher and classical scholar.

Biography

Born in 1770 in Thuringia, Forberg studied under Karl Leonhard Reinhold at

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...

. In 1791 he travelled to Klagenfurt, writing to Reinhold that there was much sympathy for the French Revolution, and to the followers of

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

that the young ladies of Klagenfurt substituted Kant's writings (modestly bound in black) for their prayer books. He was a headmaster at Saalfeld/Saale, and from 1801 to 1826 Director of the Sächsische Landesbibliothek. His philosophical publications are less known now than his 1824 edition of an erotic poem sequence in renaissance Latin, ''Hermaphroditus'' by Antonio Beccadelli. This was accompanied by Forberg's own learned commentary, which took the form of a catalogue and anthology of descriptions of sexual acts and postures in classical and later literature. Forberg's journal article regarding religion and its effect on morality initiated the Atheism Dispute which resulted in

Johann Gottlieb Fichte Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...

's dismissal from his professorship.

Works

* 1796 (anonymous) ''Fragmente aus meinen Papieren'' * 1797 "Briefe über die neueste Philosophie", in ''Philosophisches Journal'' * 1798 "Entwickelung des Begriffs der Religion", in ''Philosophisches Journal'' * 1802 ''Von den Pflichten des Gelehrten'' * 1824 ''Antonii Panormitae Hermaphroditus'' ** The commentary to the poem is better known as a separate publication under the titles , variously translated as ''Manual of classical erotology'', ''Manuel d’érotologie classique'' or ''Manual de erótica clásica'' (Edición de Luis Parra y José M. Ruiz, Ediciones Clásicas, Madrid 2007) * 1840 ''Lebenslauf eines Verschollenen''

External links

* Full bio-bibliography on the German Wikipedia {{DEFAULTSORT:Forberg, Friedrich Karl 1770 births 1848 deaths People from Meuselwitz 18th-century German philosophers German librarians Heads of schools in Germany German classical scholars Kantian philosophers German erotica writers 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German philosophers German idealists