This volume of Copleston’s A History of Philosophy looks at the idealist philosophies, and the reactions against them, that developed mainly in Germany in the nineteenth century.

Frederick Copleston was Professor of the History of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Theology at London University. This eleven-volume work is one of the most remarkable single-handed scholarly enterprises of modern times. Volume 7 covers Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, Joseph von Schelling, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Arthur Schopenhauer.

Copleston guides the reader through the work of the Post-Kantian idealists such as Schelling and Hegel, moving on to their various opponents such as Schopenhauer, Marx and Kierkegaard. He also discusses the Neo-Kantians and the influential work of Nietzsche.

Brimming with detail and enthusiasm, A History of Philosophy gives an accessible account of philosophers from all eras and explains their works in relation to other philosophers. Each volume is an ideal guide for students studying specific eras and as a set offers a complete and unrivalled overview of the entire western philosophical tradition.