This volume begins in 1870, the year in which the Prussian army defeated the French at Sedan; it ends in 1945, the year of German defeat in the Second World War. During this period Germany became the most powerful state in Europe and, indeed, twice sought to achieve control of Europe. This is also a period during which the work of German philosophers, including those of the Austrian tradition, was widely regarded as making the most important contributions to the subject. After 1945 no one could sensibly continue to maintain such a claim; so there is also a sense in which this volume covers the period of the rise and fall of the influence of German philosophy.

The early chapters of this volume describe and discuss the main currents of philosophical debate in 1870 and the following decade, during which there was a remarkable flourishing of new philosophical activity – the German Neo-Kantian movement, the idealist movement in Britain, the start of pragmatism in the United States, the work of Brentano and his followers in Austria, and so on. I shall attempt to set the scene for these chapters by briefly sketching the political and cultural world of the 1870s.

The Franco-Prussian war of 1870, followed by the fall of Paris in 1871, precipitated several important developments. The Prussian victory finally persuaded the south German states to join with Prussia in establishing a new German empire, which was consummated when Wilhelm I was crowned Kaiser in Versailles in 1871 and Bismarck was appointed chancellor of the newly unified Germany that he had for so long sought to create.