The turn of the nineteenth century marked a rich and exciting explosion of philosophical energy and talent. The enormity of the revolution set off in philosophy by Immanuel Kant was comparable, by Kant's own estimation, with the Copernican Revolution that ended the Middle Ages. The movement he set in motion, the fast-moving and often cantankerous dialectic of `German Idealism', inspired some of the most creative philosophers in modern times: including G.W.F. Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer as well as those who reacted against Kant - Marx and Kierkegaard, for example. This volume traces the emergence of German Idealism from Kant and his predecessors through the first half of the nineteenth century, ending with the irrationalism of Kierkegaard. It provides a broad, scholarly introduction to this period for students of philosophy and related disciplines, as well as some original interpretations of these authors. Each chapter is written by a distinguished scholar in the field. A glossary of technical terms together with a chronological table of philosophical, scientific and other important cultural events are provided.

German writers, be it Goethe, Nietzsche, Marx, Brecht or Mann, have had a profound influence on the modern world. This Very Short Introduction illuminates the particular character and power of German literature, and examines its impact on the wider cultural world.

Frederick C. Beiser presents a study of the two most important idealist philosophers in Germany after Hegel: Adolf Trendelenburg and Rudolf Lotze. Trendelenburg and Lotze dominated philosophy in Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century. They were important influences on the generation after them, on Frege, Brentano, Dilthey, Kierkegaard, Cohen, Windelband and Rickert. Late German Idealism is the first book on this significant but neglected chapter in European philosophical history. It provides a general introduction to every aspect of the philosophy of Trendelenburg and Lotze—their logic, metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics—but it is also a study of their intellectual development, from their youth until their death. Their philosophy is placed in the context of their lives and culture.

Publisher Description

This anthology brings together 26 readings from the classic works of German Idealist philosophy. The four towering figures - Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling - are given extensive coverage, while the work of Schiller is also included.

Explores imagination and human rationality in a crucial period of philosophy, from hermeneutics and transcendental logic to ethics and aesthetics.

German Idealism develops its philosophy of history as the theory of becoming absolute and as absolute knowledge. Historism also originates from Hegel's and Schelling's discovery of absolute historicity as it turns against Idealism's philosophy of history by emphasizing the singular and unique in the process of history. German Idealism and Historism can be considered as the central German contribution to the history of ideas. Since Idealism became most influential for modern philosophy and Historism for modern historiography, they are analyzed in this volume in a collaboration of philosophers and historians. German Idealism is presented in Schelling and its critics Schlegel, Baader, and Nietzsche; Historism in Ranke, Droysen, Burckhardt, and Treitschke. The volume further presents the impact of Idealism and Historism on present German approaches to the philosophy of history and outlines the debates on the possibility of a philosophy of history and on the methodology of the historical sciences.

This volume comprises the lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1941 on the metaphysics of German Idealism. The first part of the lecture course contains a preliminary consideration of the distinction between ground and existence. The elucidation of the conceptual history includes a striking confrontation with Kierkegaard’s and Jaspers’ concepts of existence, as well as an elucidation of the concept of existence in Being and Time, which Heidegger distinguishes from the former concepts. Heidegger’s self-interpretation is not an end in itself, however, but rather a way of pointing to Schelling’s distinction between ground and existence, whose root and inner necessity and whose various versions Heidegger discusses subsequently. The second part of the lecture course is focused on Schelling’s “freedom treatise,” which Heidegger regards as the pinnacle of the metaphysics of German Idealism. Heidegger’s consideration of Schelling’s distinction between ground and existence finds its guiding thread in the introduction of the realms of being – eternal or finite, each being is a joining of the ground of existence and existence itself. In a subsequent overview, Heidegger discusses the relation of the distinction between ground and existence to the essence of human freedom and to the essence of the human. On the basis of this discussion, it becomes possible to grasp the connection between freedom and evil in Schelling’s system. This important work by Heidegger, published here in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heidegger’s work.

`A very good idea, these Very Short Introductions, a new concept from OUP' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian --Book Jacket.

The German Idealism Reader is a comprehensive account of the key ideas and arguments central to German idealists and their immediate critics. Expanding the scope beyond the four best-known representatives - Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel - and including those thinkers often considered as secondary, but who are also crucial for understanding of this period, the Reader presents an influential era in all its philosophical complexity. Through its broad coverage of philosophers and their texts, it offers a complete dynamic picture of the intellectual period and features: - Selections from key texts by Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel - Readings from Reinhold, Schiller, Maimon, Schulze, Jacobi, Hölderlin, and Novalis - Responses to and critiques of German idealist thought by late nineteenth century thinkers, such as Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche - Selections extending beyond the typical focus on epistemology and metaphysics to include ethics, religion, society, and art - A general introduction and timeline, together with a chronology and bibliography to each thinker and introductory overviews to both thinkers and text With readings carefully selected to illustrate thinkers in dialogue with each other, The German Idealism Reader provides a better appreciation of the philosophical discussions central to the period. This is essential reading for all students of German idealism and the nineteenth-century German and Continental philosophies, as well as to those studying the important movements and periods of European intellectual history.