The story of German philosophy from the Middle Ages to today In an accessible narrative that explains complex ideas in clear language, Vittorio Hösle traces the evolution of German philosophy and describes its central influence on other aspects of German culture, including literature, politics, and science, from the Middle Ages to today. A Short History of German Philosophy addresses the philosophical changes brought about by Luther’s Reformation, and then presents a detailed account of German philosophy from Leibniz to Kant; the rise of a new form of humanities; and the German Idealists. The following chapters investigate the collapse of the German synthesis in Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche. Turning to the twentieth century, the book explores the rise of analytical philosophy; the foundation of the historical sciences; Husserl’s phenomenology and its radical alteration by Heidegger; the Nazi philosophers Gehlen and Schmitt; and the main West German philosophers after 1945. Arguing that there was a distinctive German philosophical tradition from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, the book closes by examining why that tradition largely ended in the recent past. A philosophical history remarkable for its scope, brevity, and lucidity, this is an invaluable book for students of philosophy and anyone interested in German intellectual and cultural history.

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Excerpt from German Philosophy in Relation to the War Since the death of Hegel. There is thus a danger of doing grave injustice to what was in essence a great constructive effort of thought by associating it with the present orgy of violence and ruthless destruction. That the danger is a real one is proved by the fact that before the war was many weeks old letters appeared in The Times seeking to discredit the whole movement of German speculation and the higher criticism that to a large degree sprang out of it on precisely this ground. The confusion was pointed out by several writers (among others by myself) at the time. But the subject seemed to me important enough to deserve fuller treatment than was possible in the columns of The Times, and the lectures that follow were delivered in this University with that object. That I should be able to give an even passable account of anything so complicated as the movement of thought in Germany in the nineteenth century in so short a space, even though I had been competent to attempt it, was not of course to be expected. What I sought to do was, in the first place, to set the debt which philosophy, and through it civilization, owes to the series of great thinkers from Kant to Hegel in the simplest and clearest light; secondly, to indicate some of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.