Guidelines

Source

Johann Gottlieb Fichte's sämmtliche Werke, edited by J. H. Fichte, 8 volumes, Berlin: Veit und Comp., 1845–1846, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte's nachgelassene Werke, edited by J. H. Fichte, 3 volumes, Bonn: Adolph-Marcus, 1834–1835. The text is read from the scan of the copy in the Bavarian State Library. Citations give volume, page, and line: SW I, 120.14, NW II, 87.3.

What this edition is and what it is not

This digital edition reproduces one particular print: the edition published by Fichte’s son I. H. Fichte, the Sämmtliche Werke (1845–1846) and the Nachgelassene Werke (1834–1835). It reproduces it exactly, checked page by page against the scan and with its misprints, and makes it freely readable, searchable, and citable.

It is not a critical edition. It draws on neither manuscripts nor first printings, records no variants, and does not emend his son’s text.

Anyone doing text-critical work needs the J. G. Fichte-Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (GA, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 1962–2012). It is complete in 42 volumes in four series: works, posthumous writings, letters, and lecture transcripts. For citation it is the authoritative basis.

This edition is prepared by Giuliano Infantino, independently and without any connection to a publisher or academy. The text is obtained by machine and measured against planted test errors; a complete human proofreading has not taken place (Limits).

Citing

Citations follow the print: volume, page, and line, thus SW I, 120.14 or NW II, 87.3. Lines are counted from the top. For scholarly work, a reference to the Gesamtausgabe (GA) is recommended in addition or instead. If you wish to cite this digital edition: Digital Fichte Edition, prepared by Giuliano Infantino, fichteedition.com, version and date of access.

Method

I knew of no freely accessible electronic version of this edition checked against the print; other editions are not used. The text is therefore produced from three OCR readings of the same scan: Apple Vision, Tesseract and, for the first volumes, the OCR of the Bavarian State Library. The Sämmtliche Werke are set in roman type and emphasize with italics; italics are recognized in the image by the slant of the strokes. The Nachgelassene Werke are set in Fraktur and emphasize with letter-spacing.

A word is accepted without further checking only if no reading contradicts it, its italics are unambiguous in the image, and it occurs in the period dictionary formed from the text of the Digital Schelling Edition and the Digital Hegel Edition. In this way, errors that all readings share are also caught (güllig for gültig). Every other passage is decided by machine against the page image, letter by letter; in the process every line is read against the print, and structure, headings, and notes are determined. A second pass reads every page once more in full against the image. The OCR reads Fraktur poorly; there the pages are read almost entirely from the image, and a third pass has been added. A complete human proofreading has not taken place.

What has been measured

• 11 volumes, 6,424 printed pages, 314,244 check points, decided against the page image.
• In the first pass, 65,201 lines that carried no check point were also corrected (in the Fraktur, almost every line). The further passes corrected another 7,835 lines.
• For one measurement, a single plausible reading error was planted in each of a number of finished pages (such as wabren for wahren, a missing comma), unknown to the check. The second pass found 120 of 120 in the Sämmtliche Werke and corrected them exactly, and 39 of 40 in the Nachgelassene Werke.

Reproduction

• Spelling and punctuation remain as printed (seyn, dass, diess, giebt; in the Nachgelassene Werke daß). Misprints are not corrected. Long ſ and other Fraktur forms are resolved.
• Emphasis is marked up, both the italics of the Sämmtliche Werke and the letter-spacing of the Nachgelassene Werke; the reader displays it, as you choose, in italics, letter-spaced, or plain.
• The notes stand in their place, with the printed sign; the editor’s notes belong to the print and are recorded like Fichte’s.
• The print has no line numbers. Lines are counted from the top, the notes in their own sequence.
• Running heads, signature marks, and the page numbers of the first printings at the head of the page do not belong to the text; the TEI records the running head as fw.
• The tables of contents follow the printed contents listings of the volumes.

Limits

This is the first version. Formulas, tables, and figures are in part reproduced in simplified form. Complete freedom from error is not guaranteed; reports of errors are welcome.