This introduction by Ralf Konersmann outlines the historical and systematic structure of cultural philosophy. It examines the needs that facilitated the emergence of the discipline and explains the rise of cultural philosophy at the turn of the 20th century. Separate chapters are dedicated to the fundamental concepts of cultural philosophy, its most important representatives, the clarity of its subject matter, and the demands of a critical cultural philosophy. The concluding chapter specifies the cultural as a phenomenon of detours: all culture is a culture of detours.