Friedrich Karl Forberg

Friedrich Karl Forberg (30 August 1770, Meuselwitz – 1 January 1848, Hildburghausen) was a German philosopher and classical scholar. Born in 1770 in Thuringia, Forberg studied under Karl Leonhard Reinhold at Jena. In 1791 he travelled to Klagenfurt, noting the local sympathy for the French Revolution and the extent to which Kant's philosophy had permeated the young ladies' reading habits, even replacing prayer books. He served as a headmaster at Saalfeld/Saale and, from 1801 to 1826, was the Director of the Sächsische Landesbibliothek. Forberg's philosophical publications are not as widely recognized today as his 1824 edition of 'Hermaphroditus,' an erotic poem sequence in Renaissance Latin by Antonio Beccadelli. This edition included Forberg's own extensive commentary, which functioned as a catalogue and anthology of descriptions of sexual acts and postures found in classical and later literature. Forberg's journal article concerning religion and its impact on morality inadvertently sparked the Atheism Dispute, a controversy that ultimately led to Johann Gottlieb Fichte's dismissal from his professorship.