Friedrich Karl Forberg


Friedrich Karl Forberg was a German philosopher and classical scholar.

Biography

He studied under Karl Leonhard Reinhold at Jena. 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 that the young ladies of Klagenfurt substituted Kant's writings 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's dismissal from his professorship.

Works