Philosophy of the Unconscious was translated from German into French and English, and went through many editions in all three languages, exerting a great influence on European culture and helping to make the idea of the unconscious familiar and accepted by the close of the 19th century. The work was widely read.
Philosophy of the Unconscious received a critical discussion in the philosopher
Franz Brentano's
Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874); Brentano commented that Hartmann's definition of consciousness perhaps referred to "something purely imaginary" and certainly did not agree with his definition of consciousness. The philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche described Hartmann's book as a "philosophy of unconscious irony", in his
On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, one of the essays included in
Untimely Meditations (1876). In Nietzsche's words: "Take a balance and put Hartmann's 'Unconscious' in one of the scales, and his 'World-process' in the other. There are some who believe they weigh equally; for in each scale there is an evil word—and a good joke." Hartmann's work has been seen as preparing the way for Freud's later theory of the unconscious. in which he called Hartmann the firmest opponent of the theory that dreams are wish fulfillments. The philosopher
Hans Vaihinger was influenced by
Philosophy of the Unconscious, relating in his ''
The Philosophy of 'As if' (1911) how it led him to Schopenhauer. The psychiatrist Henri Ellenberger writes in The Discovery of the Unconscious'' (1970) that the main interest of Hartmann's work is not its philosophical theories, but its wealth of supporting material. The psychologist
Hans Eysenck writes in
Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1985) that Hartmann's version of the unconscious is very similar to Freud's. The philosopher
Roger Scruton described
Philosophy of the Unconscious as the "first major treatise" about the unconscious in
Sexual Desire (1986). He credited Hartmann with offering a "canny and vigorous" description of sexual desire, but nevertheless considered him unsuccessful in explaining its
intentionality.
John Kerr writes that Hartmann's ideas about "destruction and transformation" parallel those of psychoanalyst
Sabina Spielrein. The Italian poet
Giovanni Pascoli was influenced by
Philosophy of the Unconscious in his poetics program, "Il fanciullino" ("The child", 1897). ==English translation==