Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi

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Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi
Jacobi painting by Johann Friedrich Eich, 1780
Born	(1743-01-25)25 January 1743 Düsseldorf, Electorate of the Palatinate, Holy Roman Empire
Died	10 March 1819(1819-03-10) (aged 76) Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Confederation
Children	Carl Wigand Maximilian Jacobi
Relatives	Johann Georg Jacobi (brother)
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	German idealism
Main interests	Common sense realism, religious philosophy, metaphysics, moral philosophy
Notable ideas	Glaube, Offenbarung, nihilism

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (German: [jaˈkoːbi]; 25 January 1743 – 10 March 1819) was an influential German philosopher, literary figure, and socialite. He is notable for popularizing nihilism, a term coined by Obereit in 1787, and promoting it as the prime fault of Enlightenment thought particularly in the philosophical systems of Baruch Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Johann Fichte and Friedrich Schelling.^[1]

Jacobi advocated Glaube (variously translated as faith or "belief") and revelation instead of speculative reason. In this sense, Jacobi can be seen to have anticipated present-day writers who criticize secular philosophy as relativistic and dangerous for religious faith.

His aloofness from the Sturm and Drang movement was the basis of a brief friendship with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He was the younger brother of poet Johann Georg Jacobi and the father of the great psychiatrist Maximilian Jacobi.