Introduction to German Philosophy

Andrew Bowie is Chair of German and Founding Director of the Humanities and Arts Research Centre at Royal Holloway, University of London.

"One strength of this admirable introduction to modern German philosophy for English-speaking readers is the masterly manner in which Andrew Bowie manages to fairly structure an abundance of illuminating ideas." Jürgen Habermas "Bowie provides an excellent overview which will be useful for general readers, students and specialists." The Philosophers' Magazine "Where Bowie really shines ... is in introducing "minor" figures such as Herder and Hamann and showing how they prefigure the ideas of Schelling, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and contemporary analytic thinkers such as John McDowell and Robert Brandom. His chapter on the Early Romantics is equally clear and far-reaching." Times Higher Education Supplement "This is probably the most knowledgeable presentation in English of the history of the German contribution to so-called continental philosophy from Herder and Kant to Gadamer and Habermas. Andrew Bowie is an exceptional scholar of German Romanticism and Idealism as well as of the hermeneutic tradition and critical theory of the twentieth century." Manfred Frank, Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen "This book has remarkable breadth. Not only does it cover a larger period of German thought than other similar books, but it also has a genuine appreciation for so-called “second-rank” figures (e.g., Herder, Schlegel, Schelling) and for a range of issues concerning aesthetics and society that go far beyond the narrow focus on epistemology and metaphysics that one typically finds in philosophical overviews." Karl Ameriks, University of Notre Dame

• Preface. Introduction.1. The Kantian Revolution.2. The Discovery of Language: Hamann to Herder.3. German Idealism: From Fichte to early Schelling.4. German Idealism: Hegel.5. Critiques of Idealism I: the early Romantics to Feuerbach.6. Critiques of Idealism II: Marx.7. Critiques of Iddealism III: Nietzsche.8. The “Linguistic Turn”.9. Phenomenology.10. Heidegger: Being and Hermeneutics.11. “Critical Theory”.Conclusion.Glossary.References.Index