The book presents an integral picture of classical German philosophy after Kant for the first time, incorporating less prominent positions and not adhering to a teleological interpretative pattern that seeks a final form of this philosophy. Kant's demand to develop philosophy as a "system of pure reason" has been decisive for the generation of philosophers that followed him - Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and the early Romantics Novalis, Schlegel, and Schleiermacher. However, their realization has been conditioned by Jacobi's characterization and critique of Spinoza's philosophy as a system of reason. This tension gives classical German philosophy after Kant its overarching unity despite all internal differences.