In the second phase of his career, Solomon deepened his engagement with both the history of philosophy and the lived significance of human emotions. With Introducing the Existentialists and Introducing the German Idealists (1981), he positioned himself as a clear and accessible guide to continental traditions, situating existentialist and idealist thought within broader cultural and intellectual contexts. At the same time, his writings on love—Love: Emotion, Myth and Metaphor (1981) and later About Love: Reinventing Romance for Our Times (1988)—show his ongoing commitment to understanding emotions not as private disturbances but as culturally meaningful, socially structured experiences.

His ambitious In the Spirit of Hegel (1983) and From Hegel to Existentialism (1987) demonstrate his effort to place existentialist philosophy in continuity with the German Idealist tradition, revealing a historical arc that runs from systematic philosophy to the existential preoccupation with freedom and authenticity. This historical concern dovetails with Continental Philosophy Since 1750: The Rise and Fall of the Self (1988), where Solomon traces the philosophical development of the concept of the self from the Enlightenment to postmodern critiques.

Alongside these intellectual histories, Solomon also explored applied domains of philosophy, most notably in It’s Good Business (1985, with Kristine Hanson), which brought existentialist and ethical insights into conversation with the practice of business ethics. Taken together, these works reveal a period in which Solomon balanced historical reconstruction with contemporary application, and in which the themes of selfhood, love, and emotion were increasingly integrated into a comprehensive philosophical vision.