Central Works of Philosophy: The nineteenth century

Central Works of Philosophy is a five-volume collection of essays on the core texts of the Western philosophical canon over 2,500 years. These books offer remarkable insights into the ideas out of which our present ways of thinking emerged and without which they cannot fully be understood. Volume 3 introduces readers to the age of idealism, from which twentieth-century Western philosophy emerged. The volume begins with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By arguing for transcendental idealism, Kant's magnum opus not only initiated significant and turbulent philosophical activity but determined much of the course of nineteenth-century philosophy. This is followed by an exploration of the works of two post-Kantian idealists, Fichte's Science of Knowledge and Hegel's monumental Phenomenology of Spirit. Schopenhauer's masterpiece, The World as Will and Representation, which hoped to rectify deficiencies in Kant's philosophy, is discussed, as is Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. Marx's Capital, one of the most influential books of the modern age, and Nietzche's On the Genealogy of Morals, his most philosophically systematic and accessible work on ethics, are also examined. The volume ends with the moral and political philosophy of John Stuart Mill, perhaps the only philosopher in this collection to evade Kant's influence. Central Works of Philosophy is aimed at the undergraduate student and general reader. The essays provide both an overview of the work and clear and authoritative exposition of its central ideas, giving readers the resources and confidence to read the works themselves. Book jacket.