Most interpretations of Fichte's early (1794–1800) philosophy are very much influenced by a decision on two large issues. First there is the question of origins, or Fichte's early understanding of the nature of, enthusiastic commitment to, and revisions of, Kantian idealism; the distinctive position he took and defended throughout these years, amidst the general swirl of possibilities opened up by Kant's three Critiques. He had, of course, a good deal to say about Kant, but a major text for anyone interested in this origins question (interested, that is, in the inauguration of the distinctively post-Kantian set of issues that were to engage Schelling and Hegel), has become his 1794 review of G. E. Schulze's skeptical attack on Karl Reinhold. The essay has even been called “a genuine watershed in the history of German Idealism.” This does not make understanding Fichte's original idealist inspiration easy, since it involves coming to terms with quite an unsteady and large pile of topics, some involving figures now long forgotten: Fichte's reaction to Schulze's criticisms of Reinhold's attempted systematization of Kant's transcendental idealism.

The second major issue involves the reception issue: or how one understands what was at stake in the way Fichte was taken up and criticized by two of his most important fellow idealists, Schelling and Hegel.