What do you think?
Rate this book
History of Western Philosophy #7
Continental Philosophy since 1750: The Rise and Fall of the Self
The explosion of creative and speculative philosophy that emerged in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century is a thrilling intellectual adventure story, as well as an essential chapter in the history of philosophy. The main theme of this story is the rise and fall of the Self. The Self in question is no ordinary self - no individual personality nor even one of the many heroic or mock-heroic personalities of the early nineteenth century. The Self is the Transcendental Self, whose nature and ambitions are unprecedently arrogant, cosmic and often obscure. In modest terms, this universal self is human nature. In less modest terms, the Transcendental Self is nothing less than God. This thesis is what Solomon terms the Transcendental Pretence.
The book is an accessible introduction to the difficult authors of modern European philosophy. The major figures and movements are treated in an integrated narrative, free of jargon. Included are: The Enlightenment and Romanticism, German Idealism, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and the Romantics, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Max Bretano, Meinong, Frege, Dilthey, Bergson, Nietzsche, Husserl, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Hermeneutics, Sartre, Post-Modernism, Structuralism, Foucault and Derrida.
The book is an accessible introduction to the difficult authors of modern European philosophy. The major figures and movements are treated in an integrated narrative, free of jargon. Included are: The Enlightenment and Romanticism, German Idealism, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and the Romantics, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Max Bretano, Meinong, Frege, Dilthey, Bergson, Nietzsche, Husserl, Freud, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Hermeneutics, Sartre, Post-Modernism, Structuralism, Foucault and Derrida.
228 pages, Paperback
First published February 18, 1988
10 people are currently reading
233 people want to read
About the author
Robert C. Solomon
122 books173 followersRobert C. Solomon (September 14, 1942 – January 2, 2007) was a professor of continental philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
Early life
Solomon was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a lawyer, and his mother an artist. After earning a B.A. (1963) at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to the University of Michigan to study medicine, switching to philosophy for an M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1967).
He held several teaching positions at such schools as Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Pittsburgh. From 1972 until his death, except for two years at the University of California at Riverside in the mid-1980s, he taught at University of Texas at Austin, serving as Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Business. He was a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Solomon was also a member of the inaugural class of Academic Advisors at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.
His interests were in 19th-century German philosophy--especially Hegel and Nietzsche--and 20th-century Continental philosophy--especially Sartre and phenomenology, as well as ethics and the philosophy of emotions. Solomon published more than 40 books on philosophy, and was also a published songwriter. He made a cameo appearance in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life (2001), where he discussed the continuing relevance of existentialism in a postmodern world. He developed a cognitivist theory of the emotions, according to which emotions, like beliefs, were susceptible to rational appraisal and revision. Solomon was particularly interested in the idea of "love," arguing against the notion that romantic love is an inherent state of being, and maintaining, instead, that it is instead a construct of Western culture, popularized and propagated in such a way that it has achieved the status of a universal in the eyes of many. Love for Solomon is not a universal, static quality, but an emotion, subject to the same vicissitudes as other emotions like anger or sadness.
Solomon received numerous teaching awards at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a frequent lecturer in the highly regarded Plan II Honors Program. Solomon was known for his lectures on Nietzsche and other Existentialist philosophers. Solomon described in one lecture a very personal experience he had while a medical student at the University of Michigan. He recounted how he stumbled as if by chance into a crowded lecture hall. He was rather unhappy in his medical studies at the time, and was perhaps seeking something different that day. He got precisely that. The professor, Frithjof Bergmann, was lecturing that day on something that Solomon had not yet been acquainted with. The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea asks the fundamental question: "If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?"
Solomon died on January 2, 2007 at Zurich airport. His wife, philosopher Kathleen Higgins, with whom he co-authored several of his books, is Professor of Philosophy at University of Texas at Austin.
Early life
Solomon was born in Detroit, Michigan. His father was a lawyer, and his mother an artist. After earning a B.A. (1963) at the University of Pennsylvania, he moved to the University of Michigan to study medicine, switching to philosophy for an M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1967).
He held several teaching positions at such schools as Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Pittsburgh. From 1972 until his death, except for two years at the University of California at Riverside in the mid-1980s, he taught at University of Texas at Austin, serving as Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Business. He was a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Solomon was also a member of the inaugural class of Academic Advisors at the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.
His interests were in 19th-century German philosophy--especially Hegel and Nietzsche--and 20th-century Continental philosophy--especially Sartre and phenomenology, as well as ethics and the philosophy of emotions. Solomon published more than 40 books on philosophy, and was also a published songwriter. He made a cameo appearance in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life (2001), where he discussed the continuing relevance of existentialism in a postmodern world. He developed a cognitivist theory of the emotions, according to which emotions, like beliefs, were susceptible to rational appraisal and revision. Solomon was particularly interested in the idea of "love," arguing against the notion that romantic love is an inherent state of being, and maintaining, instead, that it is instead a construct of Western culture, popularized and propagated in such a way that it has achieved the status of a universal in the eyes of many. Love for Solomon is not a universal, static quality, but an emotion, subject to the same vicissitudes as other emotions like anger or sadness.
Solomon received numerous teaching awards at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a frequent lecturer in the highly regarded Plan II Honors Program. Solomon was known for his lectures on Nietzsche and other Existentialist philosophers. Solomon described in one lecture a very personal experience he had while a medical student at the University of Michigan. He recounted how he stumbled as if by chance into a crowded lecture hall. He was rather unhappy in his medical studies at the time, and was perhaps seeking something different that day. He got precisely that. The professor, Frithjof Bergmann, was lecturing that day on something that Solomon had not yet been acquainted with. The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea asks the fundamental question: "If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair? Or would you fall to your knees in gratitude?"
Solomon died on January 2, 2007 at Zurich airport. His wife, philosopher Kathleen Higgins, with whom he co-authored several of his books, is Professor of Philosophy at University of Texas at Austin.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 27, 2013
This quarter century old basic introduction to the history of continental philosophy still stands up to scrutiny. Robert Solomon has a mildly polemical intent in that (in my opinon quite correctly) he clearly wants us to be unpersuaded by the transcendental claims of the great essentialists - Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and their followers.
The book's narrative perhaps hinges on the great anti-philosopher and so the greatest philosopher of the continental tradition, Nietzsche. It is as if progress was not possible until he had spoken though we can offer some thanks to the intellect of Kierkegaard.
Looking back, everything before Nietzsche looks increasingly like ideology and everything after him an attempt at science, the striving towards a philosophy that had the measure of man as he is in relation to the world or a somewhat futile attempt to salvage what he wrecked.
Of course, ideology returns in the synthesis between it and existentialism of the flawed genius Sartre, the squabbles with Camus (untreated here) and the important explorations of identity of De Beauvoir but it has to take account of the existential impulse in order to salvage a somewhat intense and over-wrought version of meaning.
By the time we get to the last chapter, we are too close to the period in which Solomon is writing. He is wisely cautious about what will and will not matter to future generations. In the mid-1980s he can reasonably judge that Althusser and Lacan were effectively damp squibs and have the jury out on Derrida and Foucault (though the last is clearly joining the greats as time passes).
In fact, what does strike us is just how good Solomon's judgment is in nearly every case. Even today, we would give Marx the due given by Solomon and we have since thrown Freud over board as influence on philosophy perhaps too easily.
But (given the closing of the story in effect in the middle of the twentieth century) what remains striking is that the long tail of Kantian and Hegelian nonsense is still so culturally dominant today outside philosophy itself.
We can push to one side the clowning of Zizek but philosophy today is either soundly analytical but increasingly sceptical of itself, striving to give up bits of itself to the cognitive sciences, or it is attempting to find out what it is to be human (the followers of Heidegger) or how power, text, language and the social actually operate (Foucault) rather than piddle around with non-existent universals.
Philosophy remains dynamic and questioning and yet our political and artistic culture, having disposed of both Freud and Marx, seems stuck in the world created by the absolutist transcendentalists.
My own theory on this relates to psychology. The class that sits in a manipulative position over the masses has no tools left but an invented idealism in order to guide and control them.
It is not that Kantian rights theory or Hegelian dialectic (shorn of its Marxist overlay now) are true but that, as tools, they are useful, whereas the insights on what it is to be human of Heidegger (after Nietzsche) or Foucault may be true but they are not useful except to individuals and (were they but to know it) the masses themselves.
The search for meaning thus intersects with a struggle over power and the Absolute has become a pragmatically useful replacement for God. It can both give a spurious meaning to people desperate for meaning (even if it not be true) and be a tool for power while posturing as progressive or advanced thought.
No wonder the liberal intelligentsia and administrative classes find it difficult to give these essentialisms up - it would be like the cynical Constantine giving up Christianity even after someone had pointed out that it was based on invented nonsense.
The invented nonsenses of Christianity were too obvious by the Enlightenment so the arrival of Rousseau and his ilk was like (excuse the joke) a 'deus ex machina', ready and waiting for the new 'democratic' ideologies of conscription and manipulation.
Heidegger and Sartre drifted into the same trap in different ways (and were unlike Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, even if a perverted form of the last was utilised by evil forces later).
Heidegger, whose early and core philosophy stands as the most profoundly 'realistic' account of how we humans exist in the world, drifted into a mystical stance later that might easily have become transcendental in its own right if taken further.
Sartre, a true manipulative genius, merged existentialism with Cartesianism to turn philosophy into a weapon once again but (as Marx did) one for the damned and discontented of the earth to use if they were so minded. That Sartre turned to Marx as tool to hand should occasion no surprise.
Neither 'turn' was persuasive because both wanted to reinvent meaning where there was no necessity for it, either for the individual in the world or as a tool for action in the world. Neither seemed to be able to reconstruct sufficient 'pagan virtue' but had to invent alienations where none need have existed. The theory of alienation, of course, actually being at its worse in the hysterically ridiculous value judgments emerging in the 'horreur' of commodification and objectification from the dimmer type of late Marxist.
Today, we seem to live in a world where philosophy exists in three layers: a top layer of serious investigation that informs how science is being done and how people may live in the world; an intermediate layer of celebrity performance whose sole purpose appears to be pander to the prejudices of a certain type of graduate terrified of becoming declasse; and the level below this where liberal rights activism and administrative conservatism rely on philosophical systems that are outdated and, bluntly, plain wrong.
Below these three layers are the population at large, controlled by the layer immediately above (and half persuaded where they are not holding to traditional world views of their rightness), confused by and disconnected from the layer above that and not realising that the things that will decide their future and their world live in that fertile top layer.
What we have as the world trundles towards a revolutionary situation based on technological change is a cultural milieu in which rights and the dialectic have simply replaced traditional religion. It is no surprise to see, equally threatened by the new world, faith-based groups and many intellectual 'Leftists' converging in conservative opposition to the technological and freedom agenda emerging (albeit mostly accidentally) out of much current philosophy.
We are entering a time of struggle. The reactionary forces in this struggle include Enlightenment absolutism as much as people who believe in supernatural forces - both the Absolute and God are really simply variations on the same theme. However, that is looking at things a quarter of a century on from this book.
In the meantime, Solomon's narrative should be taken as one of the best short and very readable guides to the continental tradition, from Rousseau to the existentialists and phenomenologists, and is recommended.
The book's narrative perhaps hinges on the great anti-philosopher and so the greatest philosopher of the continental tradition, Nietzsche. It is as if progress was not possible until he had spoken though we can offer some thanks to the intellect of Kierkegaard.
Looking back, everything before Nietzsche looks increasingly like ideology and everything after him an attempt at science, the striving towards a philosophy that had the measure of man as he is in relation to the world or a somewhat futile attempt to salvage what he wrecked.
Of course, ideology returns in the synthesis between it and existentialism of the flawed genius Sartre, the squabbles with Camus (untreated here) and the important explorations of identity of De Beauvoir but it has to take account of the existential impulse in order to salvage a somewhat intense and over-wrought version of meaning.
By the time we get to the last chapter, we are too close to the period in which Solomon is writing. He is wisely cautious about what will and will not matter to future generations. In the mid-1980s he can reasonably judge that Althusser and Lacan were effectively damp squibs and have the jury out on Derrida and Foucault (though the last is clearly joining the greats as time passes).
In fact, what does strike us is just how good Solomon's judgment is in nearly every case. Even today, we would give Marx the due given by Solomon and we have since thrown Freud over board as influence on philosophy perhaps too easily.
But (given the closing of the story in effect in the middle of the twentieth century) what remains striking is that the long tail of Kantian and Hegelian nonsense is still so culturally dominant today outside philosophy itself.
We can push to one side the clowning of Zizek but philosophy today is either soundly analytical but increasingly sceptical of itself, striving to give up bits of itself to the cognitive sciences, or it is attempting to find out what it is to be human (the followers of Heidegger) or how power, text, language and the social actually operate (Foucault) rather than piddle around with non-existent universals.
Philosophy remains dynamic and questioning and yet our political and artistic culture, having disposed of both Freud and Marx, seems stuck in the world created by the absolutist transcendentalists.
My own theory on this relates to psychology. The class that sits in a manipulative position over the masses has no tools left but an invented idealism in order to guide and control them.
It is not that Kantian rights theory or Hegelian dialectic (shorn of its Marxist overlay now) are true but that, as tools, they are useful, whereas the insights on what it is to be human of Heidegger (after Nietzsche) or Foucault may be true but they are not useful except to individuals and (were they but to know it) the masses themselves.
The search for meaning thus intersects with a struggle over power and the Absolute has become a pragmatically useful replacement for God. It can both give a spurious meaning to people desperate for meaning (even if it not be true) and be a tool for power while posturing as progressive or advanced thought.
No wonder the liberal intelligentsia and administrative classes find it difficult to give these essentialisms up - it would be like the cynical Constantine giving up Christianity even after someone had pointed out that it was based on invented nonsense.
The invented nonsenses of Christianity were too obvious by the Enlightenment so the arrival of Rousseau and his ilk was like (excuse the joke) a 'deus ex machina', ready and waiting for the new 'democratic' ideologies of conscription and manipulation.
Heidegger and Sartre drifted into the same trap in different ways (and were unlike Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, even if a perverted form of the last was utilised by evil forces later).
Heidegger, whose early and core philosophy stands as the most profoundly 'realistic' account of how we humans exist in the world, drifted into a mystical stance later that might easily have become transcendental in its own right if taken further.
Sartre, a true manipulative genius, merged existentialism with Cartesianism to turn philosophy into a weapon once again but (as Marx did) one for the damned and discontented of the earth to use if they were so minded. That Sartre turned to Marx as tool to hand should occasion no surprise.
Neither 'turn' was persuasive because both wanted to reinvent meaning where there was no necessity for it, either for the individual in the world or as a tool for action in the world. Neither seemed to be able to reconstruct sufficient 'pagan virtue' but had to invent alienations where none need have existed. The theory of alienation, of course, actually being at its worse in the hysterically ridiculous value judgments emerging in the 'horreur' of commodification and objectification from the dimmer type of late Marxist.
Today, we seem to live in a world where philosophy exists in three layers: a top layer of serious investigation that informs how science is being done and how people may live in the world; an intermediate layer of celebrity performance whose sole purpose appears to be pander to the prejudices of a certain type of graduate terrified of becoming declasse; and the level below this where liberal rights activism and administrative conservatism rely on philosophical systems that are outdated and, bluntly, plain wrong.
Below these three layers are the population at large, controlled by the layer immediately above (and half persuaded where they are not holding to traditional world views of their rightness), confused by and disconnected from the layer above that and not realising that the things that will decide their future and their world live in that fertile top layer.
What we have as the world trundles towards a revolutionary situation based on technological change is a cultural milieu in which rights and the dialectic have simply replaced traditional religion. It is no surprise to see, equally threatened by the new world, faith-based groups and many intellectual 'Leftists' converging in conservative opposition to the technological and freedom agenda emerging (albeit mostly accidentally) out of much current philosophy.
We are entering a time of struggle. The reactionary forces in this struggle include Enlightenment absolutism as much as people who believe in supernatural forces - both the Absolute and God are really simply variations on the same theme. However, that is looking at things a quarter of a century on from this book.
In the meantime, Solomon's narrative should be taken as one of the best short and very readable guides to the continental tradition, from Rousseau to the existentialists and phenomenologists, and is recommended.
July 22, 2016
This is an overview of some important thinkers surrounding what came to be known as the continental tradition in philosophy. It takes the evolution of the concept of "self" as a vague guiding motif, beginning with Rousseau and Kant and going all the way to Sartre (with a little supplement on Foucault and Derrida, who were still writing at the time of the book's publication). With no more than 20 pages given to any major philosopher — Hegel gets 15, Husserl 9, Kierkegaard 6 —, there is not a whole lot to learn from or argue against, and thus I see no reason to recommend this book; superficial expositions always carry a risk of giving the reader a premature sense of understanding, and Solomon isn't particularly adept at showing how much there is beyond what he exposes. It is an enjoyable read, and does give you a notion of the direction in which each of these guys were going, but I'm not sure it's worth your time. Bring it to the beach, maybe.
April 26, 2013
Solomon overuses the phrase "as such." Made me crazy.
June 23, 2009
This is a fantastic history of Continental philosophy. Solomon is an engaging writer and is both accessible and insightful.
January 23, 2026
Being a very short summary of 200 hundred years of philosophy, this booklet just outlines the complex development of Continental philosophy through the evolution of thought in Central Europe. Nothing to complain about the selection (the 800’s is quite difficult to choose otherwise), however the extension of certain sections is rather unbalanced and seems to reflect more the author’s choices than the real impact of the philosopher in the further development of philosophy and the impact on society. Actually this is the very weak point of this book or maybe I was expecting something different. This book focus only on the theoretical aspects and does not delve enough into their effect on society at large. The effect of Marx, Nietzsche and Heidegger are quite shallow. I get it, the intention of this book is to provide a general overview, but some more analysis would not have been a bad idea
June 8, 2019
Solomon is a true scholar. Instead of drawing attention upon his writings, he draws reader's attention upon the subject of his writings. That's the ultimate purpose of a book on history of philosophy. I am afraid that not all the volumes in these series, written by different others, exhibit the same virtue.
Read
May 5, 2020Pretty good introductory overview. Sections on the phenomenologists were particularly good. Overall a quite basic survey text but has a nice unifying narrative about what Solomon calls the "transcendental pretence" in the history of conceptions of subjectivity.
August 30, 2018
I love Professor Solomon's work. This is no exception.
January 18, 2017
Really good. Very accessible and succinct. I definitely would like to read some of his other books.
April 25, 2013
Like most of Solomon's work, it's well done, concise, and clear. But I did have a few minor issues with his reading of Nietzsche, though, I already knew that from his other work! This book also made me sad one more time that he didn't put a lecture about Merleau-Ponty in his "Existentialism: No Excuses!" lecture series... two philosophers robbed from us just as they were on the precipice of something amazing! Though, at least Solomon knew his number was always up (he had a serious heart condition...).
May 9, 2008
Solomon's ever a reader's fream of a writer. A professional philosopher with guts and humour and clarity. This one takes us through the major aspects of the rise and fall of the sovereign subjectivity, the transcendental self, the rational or romantic Abolutist perspective that marked that peculiar pathology of being beyond the merely human, and these days only finding expression in apolitical fringe lunacies. Kant to Derrida
August 9, 2012
Solomon offers an excellent overview of Continental philosophy. Rather than summarizing the history of the tradition in terms of specific philosophies, Solomon analyzes the role of the self in the major thinkers since Kant. Arguing that philosophy began to shift in the Enlightenment from God to Self as the transcendental signifier, he shows the continuing emphasis on the self up through Heidegger, then shows its drastic downfall with Post-structuralism.
November 2, 2014
Pretty accessible. This lil' English major did okay getting through it. Not really too dated either considering when it was written.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews