19th Century Philosophy

Günter Zöller

The evolution of 19th century philosophy is revealed through thirteen portraits: starting with Kant and German idealism, followed by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel and their radical successors and critical followers—Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Feuerbach—and then five original debates on modern society via Marx, Tocqueville, Thoreau, Comte, Mill. Finally, we arrive at Nietzsche’s heroic counter-proposal to the modern age. In each portrait, Günter Zöller focuses on one of this epoch’s basic concepts of thought, including reason, freedom, existence, work, equality and loneliness.