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Johann Gottfried Herder Revisited: The Revolution in Scholarship

in the Last Quarter Century

John H. ZammitoKarl Menges

Ernest A. Menze

Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 71, Number 4, October

2010, pp. 661-684 (Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press

For additional information about this article

Access Provided by Universitaetsbibliothek Mainz at 01/21/11 6:52PM GMT

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jhi/summary/v071/71.4.zammito.html
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Johann Gottfried Herder Revisited:

The Revolution in Scholarship

in the Last Quarter Century

John H. Zammito, Karl Menges, and Ernest A. Menze

IN MEMORIAM

REGINE OTTO

A veritable tidal shift in Herder scholarship has taken place over the last

quarter century, primarily but not exclusively in German.1 This review

essay seeks to evoke the richness and vitality of this revival with the hope

of persuading American academics that some ill-founded opinions still cir-

culating concerning Herders irrationalism and chauvinistic, even racist

1 Two new and thoroughly annotated editions of Herders works have appeared, updatingthe great edition of Bernard Suphan from the late nineteenth century: Werke in zehnBanden (Frankfurt: Deutsche Klassiker Verlag, 1985ff; hereafter cited as DKV); and

Johann Gottfried Herder Werke, ed., Wolfgang Pross: 3 vols: Vol. I, Herder und derSturm und Drang, 17641774; Vol. II, Herder und die Anthropologie der Aufklarung;Vol. III/1, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Text; Vol. III/2, Kom-mentar. (Munich, Vienna: Hanser 1984, 1987, 2002). Still, Suphans edition HerdersSamtliche Werke (Berlin: Weidmann), 33 vols. (18771913), remains indispensable. Inaddition, attention should be directed to the publications sponsored by the InternationalHerder Societynot only theHerder Jahrbuch/Herder Yearbook, the official publicationof the society, but also the many conference volumes publishing the proceedings of rich

meetings that have explored an extraordinary variety of issues in Herder and his context,

many of which will be referenced in this essay. And see most recently: A Companion tothe Works of Johann Gottfried Herder, ed. Hans Adler and Wulf Koepke (Rochester:Camden House, 2009).

Copyright by Journal of the History of Ideas, Volume 71, Number 4 (October 2010)

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JO URNAL OF THE HISTOR Y OF IDEAS OCTOBER 2010

nationalism, and his philosophical naivety and literary effrontery, might at

last be put to rest. The rationalist reconstruction of German Enlighten-

ment, with Kant as its overweening hero, now appears to have cast into

unwarranted shadow many other endeavors towards Enlightenment

including Herdersthat current historiography is recovering.2 True

Enlightenment in late eighteenth-century Germany was emphatically not

just Kants critical philosophy.3 We must pluralize our notion of Enlighten-

ment.4 The recent revival has brought sharply to the fore two crucial aspects

of Herder. First, there is the contribution of Herders thought to the emer-

gent cultural and social sciences. The recognition extended Herder in the

histories of various disciplines in the human sciences has not been mis-

guided;5 the problem is that it has not been synthesized effectively enoughacross these disciplines to demonstrate his truly seminal importance. Sec-

ond, for Herder the science of man was also a naturalscience: the divi-

sion between the humanities and the natural sciences that has been such a

hallmark of the age from Kant until very recently did not exist for him. As

Hans Adler puts it, Nature, the anthropological, and the history of

humanity belong together for Herder.6 Accordingly, there has been a sec-

ond and even more striking recognition of Herders involvement with the

emergentnaturalsciences of his day.It is routinely acknowledged that Herder played a major role in the

gestation of many of the interpretive cultural and social sciencesmost

prominently, cultural anthropology, history, and literary-philosophical her-

meneutics. At a conference devoted to Herder and anthropology in 2006,

2 See Ernst Cassirers classic, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment(Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1951), for this conception. For one striking alternative, consider Pana-

jotis Kondylis, Die Aufklarung im Rahmen des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus (Stuttgart:Klett-Cotta, 1981).3 See Werner Schneiders, Die wahre Aufklarung: Zum Selbstverstandnis der deutschenAufklarung(Freiburg: Alber, 1974). Rainer Godel, VorurteilAnthropologieLiteratur:Der Vorurteilsdiskurs als Modus der Selbstaufklarung im 18. Jahrhundert (Tu bingen:Niemeyer, 2007).4 See Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity16501750(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); J. Israel,Enlightenment Contested(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Ian Hunter, Rival Enlightenments: Civil andMetaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2001).5 Michael Carhart has discussed some of these inThe Science of Culture in EnlightenmentGermany(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007). For a wider conspectus,see Larry Wolff and Marco Cipolloni, eds., The Anthropology of the Enlightenment(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007).6 Hans Adler, Johann Gottfried Herders Concept of Humanity,Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture23 (1994): 5574, cited from 63.

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Zammito, Menges, and Menze Herder

Michael Forster brilliantly sketched the lines of Herders impact on the

emergence of cultural anthropology.7 Others have discerned this Herderian

influence, as well, most notably the dean of historians of anthropology,

George Stocking.8 With regard to history, the historicist invocation of

Herder is well-trodden ground, though the notion of historicism devel-

oped by Rudolf Stadelmann and Friedrich Meinecke was deeply flawed by

a German nationalism, an irrationalism, and a radical relativism that

must not be uncritically projected back onto Herder.9 Yet one need not go

all the way with Claus Tra ger and claim that Herders role was merely a

legend.10 Hans Dietrich Irmscher has written persuasively of Herders

significance in the emergence of modern historical practice.11 With regard

to literary-philosophical hermeneutics, some recent commentators haveacclaimed Herder as a pioneering voice for the linguistic turn and post-

modernism. This will be the specific concern of part two of this essay.

Herders tendency to take up questions of natural science with a poets

sensibility has drawn scorn, from Kants blistering reviews of the 1780s to

the most extensive recent work in English on Herders relationship to the

natural sciences, H. B. NisbetsHerder and the Philosophy and History of

Science (1970).12 To be sure, Herder was not a natural scientist, but he

7 Michael Forster, paper delivered at Conference on Herder and Anthropology, Centerfor Cultural Complexity in the New Norway, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, May,

2006.8 George Stocking, Volksgeist as method and ethic: Essays on Boasian ethnography andthe German anthropological tradition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996).See also Gerald Broce, Herder and Ethnography, Journal of the History of the Behav-ioral Sciences22 (1986): 15070.9 Rudolf Stadelmann,Der historische Sinn bei Herder(Halle: Niemeyer, 1928); FriedrichMeinecke,Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook, tr. J.E. Anderson, ed. H.D.Schmidt(orig. German ed., 1936; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972).10 Claus Tra ger,Die Herder-Legende des deutschen Historismus(Frankfurt: Verlag Marx-

istische Bla tter, 1979). See George Iggers, The German Conception of History: TheNational Tradition of Historical Thought from Herder to the Present(rev. ed.; WesleyanUniversity Press, 1983).11 Hans Dietrich Irmscher, Grundfragen der Geschichtsphilosophie Herders bis 1774,in: Brigitte Porschman, ed., Buckeburger Gesprache uber Johann Gottfried Herder 1783(Bo sendahl: Rinteln, 1984) 1032; Die geschichtsphilosophische Kontroverse zwischen

Kant und Herder, in HamannKantHerder: Acta des 4. Internationalen Hamann-Kolloqiums im Herder-Institut zu Marburg/Lahn 1985, ed. Bernhard Gajek (Frankfurt:Peter Lang, 1987), 11192. See Zammito, Herder and Historical Metanarrative: Whats

Philosophical About History? in A Companion to the Works of Johann GottfriedHerder, 6592.12 Immanuel Kant, Recensionen von J.G. Herders Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte

der Menschheit, Theil 1.2 (Berlin: Akademie Ausgabe, 1903ff), 8: 4366; H. B. Nisbet,

Herder and the Philosophy and History of Science (Cambridge: Modern HumanitiesResearch Association, 1970).

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keyed the viability of his philosophical history of mankind to the advance-

ment of the natural sciences of his day. As Elas Palti has noted: the study

of the natural sciences of his time clarifies fundamental aspects of Herders

historical view, and, conversely, the analysis of Herders philosophy allows

us to better understand [the developments in natural science].13 Central to

Herders thought was the conviction that there could be no categorical

divide between nature and (human) history. Hans Dietrich Irmscher notes,

It is striking that Herder makes absolutely no effort to bridge [the] gaps

[between nature and culture] with reference to the freedom of God and

those made in his image. Instead, he calls for a continuous, purely imma-

nent historical transition and coherence.14 Man was, to be sure, a unique

being for Herder, but within nature. This is a decisive new vantage onHerder.15 No scholar has done more to advance this fundamental reap-

praisal than Wolfgang Pross, to whose monumental edition with commen-

tary of Herders masterpiece, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der

Menschheit(178491), we will dedicate the last segment of this essay.

I. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL TURN

AND HERDERS ENLIGHTENMENT

Perhaps the most programmatic call Herder ever made came in an early

fragment from 1765: What fruitful new developments would not arise if

only our whole philosophy would become anthropology.16 Indeed, one of

the most important features of recent German eighteenth-century studies

has been the recovery of the turn to anthropology in the last half of that

century.17

13 Elas Palti, The metaphor of life: Herders Philosophy of History and Uneven Devel-

opments in Late Eighteenth-century Natural Science, History and Theory 38 (1999):

32247, citing 323n.14 Hans Dietrich Irmscher, Grundfragen der Geschichtsphilosophie, 27.15 See John H. Zammito, Method versus Manner? Kants Critique of HerdersIdeenin the Light of the Epoch of Science, 17901820, Herder Jahrbuch/Herder Yearbook,1998, ed. Hans Adler and Wulf Koepke (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1998), 125.16 Herder, Problem: wie die Philosophie zum Besten des Volkes allgemeiner und nu t-

zlicher werden kann. DKV: 1, 132.17 The theme of anthropology has been a major focus of research for the past two

decades. For a comprehensive bibliographical essay, see: Wolfgang Riedel, Anthropolo-

gie und Literatur in der deutschen Spa taufkla rung. Skizze einer Forschungslandschaft, in

Internationales Archiv fur Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur(Tu bingen: Niemeyer,1994), 93157. On the rise of anthropology in Germany see, e.g., Monika Linden, Unter-suchungen zum Anthropologiebegriff des 18. Jahrhunderts(Bern/Frankfurt: Lang, 1976);Andreas Ka user, Anthropologie und A sthetik im 18. Jahrhundert,Das achtzehnte Jahr-hundert14 (1990): 196206; Ju rgen Barkhoff & Eda Sagarra, eds., Anthropologie und

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Prominent evidence is provided in the anthology, Der ganze Mensch,

edited by Hans-Ju rgen Schings.18 Schings and his co-planners designated

four large areas: a new discourse on body-soul, a new experience of

human nature, new ideas in aesthetic sensibility, and, finally, specifically

literary anthropology.19 The first rubric spanned metaphysical and empiri-

cal considerations of mind-body interaction (empirical psychology). The

second referred to the various new domains of eighteenth-century medi-

cinephysiognomy, dietetics, temperament analysis, ideas about mental ill-

ness, animal magnetism, etc.; the third topic included such foci as genius

and imagination, feelings of the sublime and the beautiful, and enthusiasm

(Schwarmerei). Under the last, travel literature and the new psychological

novel merited special attention. Notably, the editor, Schings, and many ofhis contributors saw Herder as the undeclared, but omnipresent leading

figure of our undertaking.20

In Herder und die Anthropologie seiner Zeit, Wolfgang Pross makes

a magisterial case for the centrality of anthropology in the work of Herder,

and implicitly of Herder in the emergence of anthropology.21 For Herder,

man is a unity of feelings, imagination and understanding and in all his

powersand this is the decisive thinga creature of historicity.22 Thus

Herder saw a complete homology between his project of empirical psychol-

ogy at the level of the individual and his project of conjectural history at

the level of the species: A human race and a human child are very like one

another.23 Herder sought to explainalbeit empiricallythe totality of

human experience, and he set about to do so from the evidence in mans

sensuousness. He offered a theory of developmental psychology grounded

Literatur um 1800 (Munich: Iudicium Vlg, 1992); Katherine Faull, ed., Anthropologyand the German Enlightenment: Perspectives on Humanity (Lewisburg, Penn.: BucknellUniversity Press, 1995); Karl J. Fink, Storm and Stress Anthropology, History of the

Human Sciences6 (1993): 5171; Zammito,Kant, Herder and the Birth of Anthropology(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).18 Hans-Ju rgen Schings, ed.,Der ganze Mensch: Anthropologie und Literatur im 18. Jahr-hundert(Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994).19 Schings, Vorbemerkung des Herausgebers, in Schings, ed.,Der ganze Mensch, 24.20 Ibid., 8.21 Wolfgang Pross, Nachwort to Johann Gottfried Herder,Werke, Bd. II: Herder unddie Anthropologie der Aufklarung(Munich: Hanser, 1987), 11281216.22 Rainer Wisbert, Commentary on Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769, DKV: 9/2,877.23 Herder,Viertes Kritisches Waldchen, DKV: 2, 325. Marion Heinz observes: mankindindividualizes itself in the same way that a single person does (Heinz, Historismus

oder Metaphysik? Zu Herders Bu ckeburger Geschichtsphilosophie, inJohann Gottfried

Herder; Geschichte und Kultur, ed. Martin Bollacher (Wu rzburg: Ko nigshausen & Neu-mann, 1994), 7586, citing 83).

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in the specificity of each of the senses, which he found confirmed in the

characteristics of the particular forms of fine art which appealed to these

specific senses.24 As Pross claims, this is the core of H[erder]s anthropo-

logical proposition: external and internal are related to one another

reciprocally. . . . There is no expression of the physical which does not

immediately appear as spiritual, as the symbol of some psychic process of

reworking.25

After many years of dismissing Herder as a philosophical dilettante,

a series of works has finally emerged that try seriously to reconstruct Herd-

ers philosophical efforts in their own right. Here the recent works of Ulrich

Gaier, Hans Adler, and Marion Heinz stand as major milestones.26 Herder

developed a different conception of philosophy, a philosophy in the frameof the humanly possible.27 As Marion Heinz puts it, since Herder sepa-

rated Humes insight into the limits of human knowledge from its skeptical

consequences, he assigned to philosophy a new field of endeavor: the illumi-

nation without prejudice of the organization of the finite-human subject

and the boundaries and possibilities that this would determine.28 The main

point was that Herder insisted that philosophy was not the groundupon

which empirical study should be built, but rather the culmination of all

the empirical sciences.29 In light of the anthropological turn, this can

now clearly be seen as a central projectofthe German Enlightenment, andnot in opposition to it.

The relation of Herder to the Enlightenment has always been an essen-

tially contested issue.30 Coming to terms with it requires a nuanced grasp

24 Thus, from the reworking of the impressions of sight arise the ideas of distance, space

and substance, from the reworking of those of hearing arise the representations of succes-

sion and thus of time, and finally from the feeling of touch, the representation of unity

and multiplicity and also of cause and effect (Pross, Commentary on Kritische Walder:Viertes Waldchenin Johann Gottfried Herder,Werke, Bd. II,876).25 Pross, Commentary onFragmente uber Wolff, Baumgarten und Leibniz, ibid., 852.26 Ulrich Gaier, Herders Sprachphilosophie und Erkenntniskritik (Stuttgart/Bad Canns-tatt: Frommann & Holzboog, 1988); Hans Adler,Die Pragnanz des Dunklen: Gnoseolo-

gie, Asthetik, Geschichtsphilosophie bei J.G. Herder (Hamburg: Meiner, 1990); MarionHeinz, Sensualistischer Idealismus: Untersuchungen zur Erkenntnistheorie des jungenHerder (17631778)(Hamburg: Meiner, 1994).27 Adler,Pragnanz des Dunklen, 84.28 Heinz,Sensualistischer Idealismus, 14.29 Ibid.30 As we can see from Berlins original essay title: Isaiah Berlin, Herder and the Enlight-

enment (originally inAspects of the Eighteenth Century, ed. Earl Wasserman; reprintedin The Proper Study of Mankind[New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997], 359434). But for Herder scholarship on a more cosmopolitan footing, the path-breaking

intervention on that theme was Emil Adler, Herder und die deutsche Aufklarung(Vienna:Europa, 1968).

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all, he pitted the German literary movement known as Sturm und Drang

against the rest of the Enlightenment.

Sturm und Dranghas had a curious reception-history. Conventionally,

the term refers to a movement in literature and theater of the 1770s, extend-

ing at most to the early 1780s. For something so short-lived, its prominence

in historiography lies in its connections with European Romanticism and

German nationalism. Historical reception turnedSturm und Drangall too

simplistically into the scandalous other of true Enlightenment. A century

later, in response, the volkisch German nationalism of the late nineteenth

and especially the early twentieth centuries, in overt opposition to banal

Western Enlightenment, lionized as the source of authentic German charac-

ter the very irrationalism blasted by admirers of a Kantian Enlighten-ment.37 Yet we must not read German Second Reich chauvinism into

eighteenth-century cultural-national self-assertion. Sadly, English-language

scholarship has done precisely that in its reconstructions of eighteenth-

century Germany, ofSturm und Drang, of Romanticism, and of Herder.38

Since Herder was the leading light ofSturm und Drang, this made Herder

over into an enemy of the Enlightenment.39 Nothing has been so important

for the Herder-scholarship of the last thirty years, especially that under the

auspices of the International Herder Society, as to dispel this misconcep-

tion.40

Berlin overstates the estrangement ofSturm und DrangfromAufklar-

fields of eighteenth-century studies and also greatly admire his achievement, Berlins

invention of a monolithic Enlightenment with just three legs is more than a trifle embar-

rassing, particularly since it was only assembled so that it might be deconstructed in the

manner of Procrustes and thereby point the way to a richer understanding of the diverse

threads that constitute its opposite. Robert Wokler, Isaiah Berlins Enlightenment and

Counter-Enlightenment, inIsaiah Berlins Counter-Enlightenment, ed. Joseph Mali andRobert Wokler, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 93 (2003): 1333,

citing 18.37 See Bernhard Becker,Herder-Rezeption in Deutschland: Eine ideologiekritische Unter-suchung(St. Ingbert: Ro hrig, 1987).38 For a seminal instance, see Roy Pascal, The German Sturm und Drang (New York:Philosophical Library, 1953). For the wider context, see Katherine Arens, Geister derZeit: The Allies Enlightenment and German Literary History, Journal of English andGermanic Philology102 (2003): 33661.39 For a very different view, see Wulf Koepke, Herder and the Sturm und Drang, in

David Hill, ed., Literature of the Sturm und Drang(Rochester: Camden House, a Divi-sion of Boydell & Brewer, 2003), 74.40 Hence the concern among members of that Society, leading to this review essay, over

many misconceptions resurrected in the pages of this journal, in the recent controversy

between Steven Lestition and Robert Norton, current President of the Society. See Robert

Norton, The Myth of Counter-Enlightenment, JHI68 (2007): 63558; Steven Lesti-tion, Countering, Transposing, or Negating the Enlightenment: A Response to Robert

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ung, and this renders problematic his particular reconstruction of Herder.

Recent scholarship insists thatSturm und Drangbe seen as a development

withinthe Enlightenment, and not its abandonment.41 Gerhard Sauder has

formulated this continuity thesis elegantly, conceivingSturm und Drangas

the dynamization and internal critique of Enlightenment.42 Dynamiza-

tion entailed enlightening the wider public, empowering its capacity to

think for itself. In other words, Sturm und Drangwas an element in the

Popularphilosophie which dominated the German Aufklarungin the 1770s.

But it was also internal critique: it challenged the ways in which Enlight-

enmentnot only in France but also and perhaps especially in Germany

was falling short of, or even betraying its own ideals and aspirations,

especially from the social vantage of young men of talent.43 Goethe cap-

tured that in the melodramatic fiction ofSorrows of Young Werther, but it

is documented more soberly in the reviews he and his colleagues wrote for

theFrankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigenin 1772.44

Finally, it is reductionist to regard Sturm und Drang simply as anti-

French nationalism. French Enlightenment thought was central to German

Sturm und Drang. It is quite unimaginable without the constructive input

of Rousseau and Diderot.45 To be sure, the project was to establish a Ger-

man literary culture, and to do so would require getting out from under theFrancophile regimen emanating from Frederick IIs Berlin and the high

priest of Neoclassicism in Leipzig, Gottsched. But it is not true that this

German cultural movement wanted nothing to do with the French (and

the British). Herder was emphatically cosmopolitan in his establishment of

resources for this German cultural self-assertion, and heexplicitlydrew on

Norton, ibid., 65981; Norton, Isaiah Berlins Expressionism, or: Ha du bist dasBlockende! JHI69 (2008): 33947.41 That is the position of Matthias Luserke,Sturm und Drang: AutorenTexteThemen(Stuttgart: Reclam, 1977) and of David Hill, ed., Literature of the Sturm und Drang(Rochester: Camden House, a Division of Boydell & Brewer, 2003).42 Gerhard Sauder, The Sturm und Drang and the Periodization of the Eighteenth Cen-tury, inLiterature of the Sturm und Drang, ed. David Hill, 30932.43 Alan Leidner, The Impatient Muse (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,1994).44 Hans-Dietrich Dahnke, Intentionen und Resultate des Jahrgangs 1772 derFrankfurterGelehrten Anzeigen, inSturm und Drang: Geistiger Aufbruch 17701790 im Spiegel derLiteratur, ed. Bodo Plachta and Winfried Woesler (Tu bingen: Niemeyer, 1997), 23348.45 Anne Saada, Diderot und der Sturm und Drang, in Sturm und Drang: GeistigerAufbruch 17701790 im Spiegel der Literatur, 2340; Ralph-Reiner Wuthenow, Rous-seau im Sturm und Drang, in Sturm und Drang, ed. Walter Hinck (Kronberg: Athe-na um, 1978), 1454. And see Wolfgang Pross, ed., Herders Werke, Vol. II.:Herder undder Sturm und Drang.

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French and British resources. He proposed to join the thorough English

temperament, the wit of the French, and the resplendence of Italy with Ger-

man diligence.46 Thus, he endeavored to add to our Leibnizes the Shaft-

esburys and Lockes, to our Spaldings the Sternes, Fosters, and Richardsons,

to our Moses [Mendelssohn] the Browns and Montesquieus.47

Frederick Beiser offers a balanced view: Herder was won over to the

cause of the Aufklarungby the young Kant. All his life, though, Herder

was a deeply self-criticalAufklarer, and he was so largely due to the influ-

ence of Hamann.48 The relation of Herder to Hamann turns out to be far

more equivocal, since in the end it was the influence of Kant that proved

victorious.49 That is, If we were to describe in a word how Herder

assimilated Hamanns thought, then we would have to say that he secular-ized it. In other words, he explained it in naturalistic terms and justified it

in the light of reason.50 That gets the relationships just right, and it drives

a considerable wedge between Herder and Counter-Enlightenment.

Robert Wokler comments: Although the tone of [Hans] Aarsleffs objec-

tions to Berlins account of Herder strikes me as excessively severe, I feel

more than a little inclined to agree with his contention that the intellectual

gulf between Herder and Hamann is vast. . . .51 Indeed, it is; and

Counter-Enlightenmenta laBerlin cannot bridge the gulf.

II. HERDERS METACRITICAL TURN AND THE

HERMENEUTICAL SITUATION

Following the notion that Herders relation to the Enlightenment has

always been a contested issue, we can see the historical coordinates that

would enable us to realign rationalist discourse historically, placing a criti-

cal focus on philosophical system building.52 One of the main targets in this

46 Herder, On diligence in the study of several learned languages, in Johann Gottfried

Herder,Selected early works, 17641767, ed. Ernest Menze and Karl Menges (UniversityPark: Penn State University Press, 1992), 32.47 Herder, Journal meiner Reise im Jahre 1769, DKV, 9:33.48 Frederick Beiser, The Political Theory of J. G. Herder, in Beiser, Enlightenment, Rev-olution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 17901800(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992), 195.49 Ibid.50 Ibid., 192.51 Wokler, Isaiah Berlins Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, 20. See Hans

Aarsleff, Vico and Berlin,London Review of Books518 November 1981, 67.52 See the polemical take on Voltaires deistic Philosophie de lhistoire(1765) inAuch einePhilosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit(1774) in which Herder argues

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constellation, which has greatly contributed to Herders alleged ambassa-

dorship of theSturm und Drangmovement, are the Philosophers of Paris

(DKV 4:66)Montaigne, Bayle, Diderot, Voltaire, and, by implication,

Descartesall of whom Herder considers the matre penseurs of an era

definable as the great century of doubting and making waves. Doubt is

the latest fad of the leading French philosophers whom Herder dismisses

as radical skeptics, all doubters, pursuing universalist constructions in a

logocentric and appropriating approach to the history of the world

(DKV 4: 41, fn.10).

What Herder attacks here is the inherent dogmatism of radical skepti-

cism. By questioning everything that is doubtable, the skeptic tries to make

the opposite emerge: something indubitable that might serve as the securefoundation for all theoretical inquiries. Hoping for the elimination of all

uncertainties in sensory perception, it is, of course, Descartes who suggests

in his Discourse on Method(1637) that there is good reason to doubt all

sense-dependent empirical knowledge in favor of analytical propositions

which, as mental processes, appear indubitable and thus universal. Inherent

in this famous argument, which anticipates Kants transcendental turn, are

two essentials, the doctrine of the constancy of human nature, which

extends to the discrediting of history as the realm of a contingent andunscientific empirical world, and the corresponding liberation of man

from those very contingencies through an enlightened transition from

superstition to progress and social perfection. Clearly, Voltaires philosophy

of history is informed by this program and its optimistic prediction of the

inexorable progress of human knowledge and perfection.53

Herder rails all his life against such constructivism and the associated

goal of philosophy towards system building and closure. Which brings up

the rhetorical question whether we can ever hope to arrive at certaintythrough speculative processes, or whether all constitutivism, cut off from

validating experience (Erfahrung) does not amount, rather, to figments of

the imagination (Figmenta ex nullis ad nulla DKV 8: 343), given its

lack of empirical support.54

for a pragmatic historiographical approach, repeating the earlier call for a transfor-

mation of philosophy into anthropology (DKV 1, 132).53 For a comparison of Herders early philosophy of history with its Voltairian counter-

part see Michael Maurer, Die Geschichtsphilosophie des jungen Herder in ihrem Verha lt-

nis zur Aufkla rung, in Johann Gottfried Herder 17441803, ed. Gerhard Sauder(Hamburg: Meiner, 1987), 14155.54 See Adler who emphasizes haptic perception over visual impression in Die Pragnanzdes Dunklen, 11720.

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It is here that Herders revolutionary contribution to modern language

philosophy comes into play. His thought has been explicated by Ju rgen

Trabant in a number of brilliant essays that focus on the specifically human

dimension of language as an instrument of cognition and not just communi-

cation. Briefly: while man communicates through sounds just like the ani-

mals,55 it is the cognitive disposition to listen and respond, rather than act

without thinking to any stimulus that sets humans apart. Man is able and

is, in fact, called upon, to engage in a communicative discourse grounded

in an interpersonal disposition which Herder callsBesonnenheit, reflexivity.

Thought, in other words, has a decisive auditory component as hearing

becomes the privileged sense.56

It is in this context that Herders anthropological turn unfolds, as heprivileges sensual, particularly auditory perception, over intellectual intu-

ition in a reversal of mind over body. Being as the center of all certainty

(DKV 1:19) appears as the core proposition that has been rightly associated

with a transcendental philosophy of sensual perception.57 As such it

informs Herders philosophy of language, which has had a decisive impact

on the linguistic turn of the late eighteenth century.58 To gain a more

nuanced perspective on these filiations and their impact on contemporary

thought, hermeneutics and sociological system theory, in particular, itmight be helpful to retrace briefly Herders ambivalent relationship to tran-

scendentalism and his transformation of critical philosophy.

The central question in Kants critical enterprise is the famous

notion of synthetic propositions a priori.59 While human knowledge is

always a function of ordering the variety of sense impressions, they can

only be ordered when principles are given that have been gained not from

experience but rationally and a priori. Herder vehemently disagrees with

this proposition by declaring it an extra-mundane fallacy. If there is any

given a priori, it is, in his view, not consciousness but Being which

appearssince hisEssay on Being(1763/64)as the mantle into which we

55 Hence the opening sentence of Herders prize essay on language origin: Already as ananimal, the human being has language (DKV 1:697).56Ju rgen Trabant, Herders Discovery of the Ear, in: Herder Today: Contributionsfrom the International Herder Conference, ed. Kurt Mueller-Vollmer (Berlin: de Gruyter1990), 34566. Also Herder and Language, in A Companion to the Works of JohannGottfried Herder, 117- 39.57 Ulrich Gaier,Herders Sprachphilosophie und Erkenntnistheorie, 35.58 See Ju rgen Trabant, Mithridates im Paradies. Kleine Geschichte des Sprachdenkens(Munich: Beck, 2003), 21829.59 Immanuel Kant,Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, ed. G. Hatfield (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2004), 28, 31.

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are literally wrapped (DKV 1:14). Yet it is not pure Being (Sein) that

Herder thematizes in its encompassing vastness and related emptiness. It is

Dasein, existence (orbeing-in-the-worldin the Heideggerian sense)60 that

attracts his attention. Dasein as the articulated form of Being (Seiendes)

becomes the focal point, centered on an ongoing interplay between individ-

ual and social spheres. To the extent that we exist with others (DKV

8:350), we compete on the basis of what appears sensible and meaningful

at any given moment. The fact that it changes constantly in reaction to

the ever shifting complexity of the world, only underscores the sequential

creation of meaning (Sinn). Such creation is not a stable, one-time affair,

but an ongoing self-referential process in that the construction of meaning

always refers to prior meaning. Put differently: to the extent that Daseinappears as a function of competing individual and social forces, the tradi-

tional logocentric model in Western thought yields to the notion of an

emerging order, as meaning always changes in interaction with highly selec-

tive and complex sets of circumstances. It is not a given, much less an a

prioriconstruct but a result.61

Herder inverts here that highest point in Kants synthetic unity of

perception,62 i.e., self-consciousness, by grounding it in a multitude of lan-

guage games within the horizon of an established community of speakers:We are people, he asserts, before we become philosophers: hence we

already possess thought and language before we approach philosophy

(DKV 1:638). Language, in other words, is always already there as Witt-

genstein later suggests,63 building implicitly on Herder who first assumes

this position with reference to the circularity of any non-linguistic attempt

at foundational knowledge.64 From this vantage point, Kants transcenden-

tal subject understandably appears as a hysteron proteron, a phantasm

or work of fiction, conjured up through misuse of language whosesenselessness is documented by the very abstractions it claims to avoid.

60 Herder anticipates central tenets of Heideggers Fundamentalontologie with his con-cept of facticity and the related analysis of forfeiture and forgetfulness of Being. See

Karl Menges, Seyn und Dasein, Sein und Zeit. Zu Herders Theorie des Subjekts, in

Herder Today,13857.61 See Niklas Luhmann,Social Systems(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 62f.62 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, tr. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: Pal-grave Macmillan, 2007), B 134.63 See Michael Morton, Changing the Subject: Herder and the Reorientation of Philoso-

phy, in Herder Today, 161, 162. Despite numerous references, a detailed study on thefiliations between Herder and Wittgenstein is still a desideratum.64 See Herders critique of Su ssmilchs language theory: Without language man has no

reason, and without reason no language, etc. (DKV 1: 727).

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Again, doing philosophy does not involve the synthetic creation of events.

All it can attempt to do is to clarify them. Hence its fundamentally analyti-

cal disposition: the only true method of philosophy is therefore the analyt-

ical one (DKV 1:424) which amounts to no more and no less than the

analysis of an already given within the multitude of creation (Schopfungs-

vielfalt).

In this context Herders own reclamation of the Copernican metaphor

comes into focus as an inversion of philosophical priorities, specifically as

a transformation of philosophy into anthropology (DKV 1:132). There

are two essential aspects in this reassignment: It is Being (Sein) that gives

human knowledge its boundaries and defines it as Seiendes; and it is the

task of analytic philosophy to determine these boundaries, thus preventing

speculation from becoming nonsensical (DKV 8:343). Hence the selective

dimension of analytic philosophy. It can be defined as a negative philoso-

phy, as the ultimate Socratic science, in recognition of the limits of

human knowledge (DKV 1:557) and its incorporation into the process of

knowing. As such it is, finally, a late-comer among philosophical schools.

In contrast to Kants prima philosophia, it is literally a last philosophy

in that it follows the empirical sciences with the goal of shedding light on

their inherently unclear predispositions (DKV 8:340).What does that entail specifically? It means, first and foremost, that

such alternative thinking is interpretiverather than foundational. Specula-

tion, according to this model, does not create and ground things; rather,

things are given to us and are structured by our own experience. Such struc-

turing, furthermore, involves choices as experience is not only imbued with

sensual receptiveness; it also represents the capacity to create meaning

(Sinn) within a spatio-temporal continuum (DKV 8:361f). Dependent upon

being, it assures, recursively, the order of things (DKV 8:360) in terms ofa ceaseless re-interpretation within an ever shifting sea of contingencies.

Herder pursues this notion by adapting Leibniz concept of a moving

force (Kraft)65 which propels Being to its human specificity as Dasein or

being-in-the-world (DKV 8:364). The important point here is the genera-

tive aspect: Humans are thrown into Being (Heideggers Geworfenheit), yet

it is up to each and everyone of us, literally, to generate our Dasein by

constantly reinterpreting it, filling it with meaning, thereby establishing

65 On the conceptual history cf. Robert E. Norton, Herders Concept of Kraft and the

Psychology of Semiotic Functions, in Johann Gottfried Herder, Academic Disciplines

and the Pursuit of Knowledge, ed. Wulf Koepke (Columbia: Camden House, 1996),2231.

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ourselves as individuals in a process of risky selectivity. Dasein, then,

requires an ongoing differentiating effort within an empirical community

of competitors: Weare with others (DKV 8:350) in order to be, or rather,

become human. The central underlying activity in all of this is not some

foundational performance. What is at work, rather, is the creation of mean-

ing through enforced selectivity. We cannot help but choose as we are liter-

ally flooded by impressions from our surroundingswe stand in a

stream, flooded by the impressions of a rich and forceful communicative

world (DKV 8:385)and it is incumbent upon us to make sense of all the

variables of this infinitely complex environment. Furthermore, complexity

is an open-ended experience that combines with contingency, that is,the

realization that there are always other possibilities to choose from. To thatextent, meaningful actions are alwaysinteractionsbased on critical analysis

and choice. The infinite possibilities within the communicative context

remain vital.

Two interrelated aspects are important here: communication is not just

a linguistic process, but, more broadly, part of the semiotic structure of our

life world and the related reproduction of the social system. Furthermore,

in view of the infinite recombinatory possibilities of the world, enforced

selection is part of the creation of meaning, which we can never escape, asit is impossible not to choose within the ever self-replicating horizon of our

world.

The notion of an essential autoproductivity in this process has been

noted as one of the constants in Herders thinking.66 It is stated para-

digmatically in this passage from theIdeas for the Philosophy of History of

Humankind: Man is the first liberated one in creation; he stands upright.

The scale of good and evil, of falsehood and truth is suspended within him:

he can search and must choose (DKV 6:145f). Choice, then, involves inter-

pretive freedom in the creation of meaning which in turn can be defined as

the selective representation of complexity. This implies (a) that any mental

operation constitutes a selection that, as Luhmann argues, cannot avoid

bypassing other possibilities,67 and (b) that the selection is self-referential

as its resultant meaning generates new meaning in an ongoing process of

choice. In doing so, man constitutes himself (DKV 7:153), Herder

asserts, because he does not follow some prior design, but acts freely, from

moment to moment, by choice. His constituting himself, therefore, is not

the result of some a priori mental activity; rather, it is the realization,

66 Hans Dietrich Irmscher, Commentary (DKV 7:818).67 Luhmann,Social Systems,60.

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the assumption of interpretive neutrality because we are always involved in

what Gadamer calls an ongoing process of effective history (Wirkungsge-

schichte). It influences the dialogue between the interpreter and the text or

past event he seeks to comprehend. Predispositions and prejudices thus

mark thehermeneutical situation into which we are embedded. Yet where

traditional historicism adheres to the Cartesian notion that the reader is

able to assume neutrality in interpretation, Gadamer posits a culturally

mediated, preexisting structure of perception that is in play in each process

of understanding. Its inescapability, which has been missed by the whole of

Western tradition, restricts the interpreter to a given that renders the notion

of objective knowledge obsolete. Echoing the Herderian claim that

knowledge can never be separated from its constituting components,Gadamer asserts that interpretation must not be thought of so much as an

action of subjectivity, but as the entering into an event of transmission in

which past and present are constantly mediated.71 As we are trying to

understand a text or occurrence, our efforts are not determined by conven-

tional concepts of scientific knowledge; rather we are always already

engaged in a process that Gadamer calls presencing (Vergegenwartigung)

in a constant merging of horizons, as here too the issue of meaning and

its adequate interpretation is in play. Prior readings always affect our mostrecent one, which is to say that it is not so much our judgments as it is our

prejudgments that constitute our being.72

Self-reference, then, and an interest-driven, prejudicial stabilization of

identity appear as mutually reinforcing faculties. And Sinncreated through

the individual force of selective reflexivity (Besonnenheit) denotes an

evolutionary process that reacts to our life world no longer with a prescrip-

tive but with a dialogical, hermeneutical disposition. Sinn and Besonnen-

heitnot only define man existentially and morally, they are foundational to

all ancillary activities as they precede thought and its articulation in lan-

guage. Herder states that man, put in the state of reflexivity which defines

his identity, . . . has invented language. Or, more precisely, as reflexivity

involves the selection of meaning as a specifically human activity, that

reflexivity characterizes man and his species just as his invention of lan-

guage (DKV 1:722). It isBesonnenheit, i.e., the ability to createSinn, that

selects and engages recursively the other in an ongoing dialogical fusion

of horizons. Hence Herders maxim: Whatever remains beyond compre-

hension for you, leave it; but do not believe that what is comprehensible in

71 Hans-Georg Gadamer,Wahrheit und Methode(Tu bingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1975), 274f.72 Ibid., 261.

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things can be created and carried into them through your opining

and thinking (DKV 8:390). Against the dogmatism of the latter, Herder

envisions the communicative paradigm of recognition (Anerkennung) and

individual choice which denotes a process of endless selection and interpre-

tation. To the extent that it defines mans social disposition, it also implies

self-determination as a specifically human capacity. As he transcends mere

biological constraints, man gains a greater view imbued with more

light, which, while pointing to an alternative form of Enlightenment,

means: No longer an infallible machine within the mechanics of nature,

he becomes for himself the purpose and end of the process (DKV1, 717).

Therein rests the ultimate meaning of humanity, with Besonnenheitas its

hermeneutical, self-referential tool.

III . HERDER AND THE NATURAL

HISTORY OF MANKIND

Despite the monumental biographical and editorial contributions by Haym

and Suphan73 in the late nineteenth century, the history of Herder scholar-

ship is full of appropriations that range from early nationalist (Wilhelmin-ian) to Fascist, Marxist, and anti-Semitic readings. All of these converge in

creating selective interpretations in which the textual evidence is reduced to

the affirmation of preconceived ideological positions. Such appropriations,

however, are a dying breed, as the new interest in Herder is complemented

by new editorial insights, resulting in the DKV and the Pross editions men-

tioned above. Both editions will serve as markers for future scholarship,

not only in regard to Herders intellectual positioning in the eighteenth cen-

tury, but to his anticipatory potential for the contemporary critical debate.While the 10-volume Frankfurt edition represents an impressive, more lexi-

cographic team effort, Prosss selective editions follow a painstaking arche-

ological approach, resulting in the excavation of sources to whom Herder

as the prototypical omnivorous reader is directly or, more frequently,

implicitly indebted.74

73 Rudolf Haym,Herder nach seinem Leben und seinen Werken, 2 vols. (Berlin: Gaertner,1877, 1885). Bernhard Suphan, ed., Herders Sammtliche Werke(Berlin: WeidmannscheBuchhandlung, 188793).74 See e.g., the impressive author index in Arnolds review and his characterization of

Prosss methology: His commentary derives not from the explication of particular pas-

sages but rather from the fundamental texts that Herder used almost like documentation

[Unterlagen] from whose current of writing and thought he adopted his own contrasting

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Some of the best recent treatment of Herders engagement with natural

science can be found in the essays of Wolfgang Pross and in the annotations

and commentary to his monumental edition of Herders Ideen. Pross has

been able to state his case in English in a contribution to an authoritative

series on political thought, but the truly notable edition of Herders selected

works, published over the course of the past quarter century, has been vir-

tually ignored in the English-speaking world.75 The texts selected by Pross

for his Herder edition, their studied arrangement within the volumes, the

matchless commentaries, and the extensive postscripts to the volumes, are

ideally suited to convey to readers unfamiliar with the larger scope of Herd-

ers life and letters a deeply informed account of the mans rise to the peak

of his powers.

While to focus on an edition of selected works brings with it the perils

of bias and omission, the comprehensiveness of Prosss commentaries

enables discerning readers to navigate the inevitable pitfalls. The editor is

to be commended for making himself available to critical analysis by shar-

ing every significant shred of evidence dug up in decades of painstaking

research. The singularity and sharpness of his focus, not to speak of his

audacity in challenging two centuries of scholarship, initially set him apart

from the mainstream. To be sure, Pross by now has long and widely beenrecognized as having provided a major thrust and new direction to the

ongoing rehabilitation of Herder. Of course, the decision to focus in this

section of a joint Herder assessment on the issues stressed by Pross must

not obscure the abundance of Herder scholarship published in Germany

and elsewhere over the same time span.76 Taken as a whole, however, the

Pross edition of selected works by Herder, leading up to the Ideen as the

quintessential expression of his thought, must be reckoned with by anyone

wishing to determine Herders place with respect to the European Enlight-enment and Romanticism. Needless to say that in that determination, Herd-

ers later writings as well as those earlier ones not included by Pross but

available in other editions must be considered.

rendition [Uberschreibung] (Pross, III /2, 11). Gu nter Arnold, Herders Geschichtsphi-

losophie und ihre Quellen, review of Pross Vol. III/1&2, 2002,IASLonline, 22.04.2003,2.75 Wolfgang Pross, Naturalism, Anthropology, and Culture, inThe Cambridge Historyof Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 218 47.76 For regularly updated bibliographical information and most recent scholarly assess-

ments see the biennial Herder Jahrbuch/Herder Yearbook (1992 ff.) and the just pub-lishedCompanion to the Works of Johann Gottfried Herder.

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Testimony to the magnitude of the Pross accomplishment came in the

insightful review of Volume III by Gu nter Arnold, the editor of Herders

letters and a scholar widely recognized as a foremost authority in the field.77

Arnolds understanding of Volume III as by far exceeding, in terms of

extent and scholarly yield, all editions of the Ideen heretofore published

(2), his explication of the editors mastery of Herders documented as well

as unacknowledged sources, many of them not mentioned previously any-

where in the Herder literature (23), his highlighting of Herders deep inter-

est in natural science as featured throughout the Pross edition (34), and

his recognition of the Pross Postscriptthe grand essay, Natur und

Geschichte in Herders Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Mensch-

heit(III/1, 8391041)as comprehensively demonstrating the anthropo-logical premises of Herders philosophy of history as well as outlining his

influence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Arnold makes up

for some of the superficial comments that greeted Vol. III upon its appear-

ance in 2002.78 Arnolds stated awareness that further thought needs to be

given to the religious dimensions of Herders conceptualizations and to the

appropriate positioning of the great Enlightenment figure in the history of

philosophy (5), is well taken, as are his repeated references to Volumes I

and II of the Pross edition.If there is one theme that runs through both volumes as selected,

arranged, and elucidated by Pross, it is that of Herders sustained commit-

ment to a world view emancipated from the outset from metaphysical fet-

ters and all manner of mystical impediments. Herders vision of the human

condition, Pross argues, was shaped by his early and lasting awareness of

the inextricable connectedness of body and soul, expressed strikingly in the

Plastik commentary of Volume II regarding Herders debate with Moses

Mendelssohn in 1769: that the concept of the soul as such becomes think-

able only on the basis of the physical form of appearance (Vol. II, 985).

Pross finds here an initial anthropological approach that progresses from

the earlier, brief excursion of the young Herder into the realm of taste,

entitled Is the Beauty of the Body a Messenger of the Beauty of the

Soul?79

The selections of Vol. I, the Essay on the History of Lyrical Poetry

77 Arnold, 15.78 See Alexander Kosenina, Niemals, niemals nur Tinte sein! in Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitungNr. 59 (March 11, 2003), 38.79 DKV 1, 13548, 9951000; published first in 1766 in a Riga journal, the text is now

available in English in Gregory Moore, Selected Writings on Aesthetics: Johann GottfriedHerder(Princeton : Princeton University Press 2006), 3140.

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(1766), the incomplete second edition of the famousFragmente(1768), the

Travel Journal of the Year 1769, the Ossian Correspondence (1773) and

the Shakespeare Essay (1773) included in Von deutscher Art und Kunst,

the Essay on Being (1763/64), and the notorious Pamphlet entitled

This, too, a History of the Formation of Humankind (1774), gathered

together under the title Herder und der Sturm und Drang go, in their

origins and effects, far beyond this very limited, often overestimated move-

ment, as Arnold observed. The fact that Pross decided to include the

revised but incomplete second edition of the Fragmente, written in 1768

but withheld from publication during Herders lifetime, is highly symptom-

atic. For Pross the revisions must almost be regarded as Anti-Hamann

as they constitute an early manifestation of a theme that runs through theentire edition (Vol. I, 730). Not only by his selections but also by repeatedly

breaking at critical points the strict chronological arrangement, Pross pur-

sues his objective of presenting the Herder who, in his view, is least known

and who urgently merits to be more widely appreciated. So, for example in

Volume I, by placing the very early Essay on Being after the 1773 selec-

tions fromVon deutscher Art und Kunst, in order to set up his presentation

of the much debated first Herder text on the philosophy of history of 1774,

Pross is able to state the theme that dominates all the texts of this volume(Vol. I, 846).

While the richly documented Postscript to Volume I (coauthored

with Pierre Penisson) ruled out religious reconstructions of the oeuvre (Vol.

I, 87882) and forcefully repudiated the bending as far back as 1927 of

Herder and Goethe in the direction of a Counter-Enlightenment,80 the

Postscript to Volume II (11281229) guides the reader through the next

essential stages, which in turn facilitates an appreciation of the culminating

presentation of HerdersIdeenin Volume III 1&2. The carefully structuredPostscript to Volume II must be regarded as an essential formulation of

the editors objective in the entire edition. It highlights the themes of the

selections and explicates the reasons for their inclusion and arrangement in

the volume. Pross describes the psycho-physiological double-constitution

of the human being as the center of the discourse, present in the entire

oeuvre from the earliest writings to those left unfinished at the time of

Herders death. Suspended between cosmocentrism and anthropocen-

trism, the Herder of Volume II comes to terms with the objective auton-

80 See Pross, Vol. I, 896, n. 91: Some interpreters, so exemplarily Franz Koch 1927,

have bent Herders and Goethes oeuvre in the direction of a radical Counter-Enlighten-

ment.

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omy of mechanics in a closed scientific system and the subjectivity of

experience, both having in common the momentous twin elements eman-

cipation from God and enhanced valuation of nature (Vol. II, 1130

31). Again, the arrangement of the selections drives the thesis of Herders

anthropological turn in terms of his innovative aesthetics linked to a phi-

losophy of history that aims at the ultimate symbiosis of the cultural and

the natural sciences.

Given the enormous range of writings to choose from (as evidenced by

the 33-volume Suphan edition, with the Nachlass not yet exhausted), the

selections of Volume II, as far as Pross is concerned, present the core com-

ponents of the essential Herder. The centerpiece of Volume II is Herders

famous 1772 prize essay On the Origins of Language, a text which alsoplayed a central role in Prosss early scholarly career.81 Richly informed by

that scholarship, Pross assigns the Origins of Language a crucial role in

tying the components of Volume II together. Prefaced by the brief selections

of the late 1760s about three authors (Wolff, Baumgarten, and Leibniz),

which show Herder as an author in the field of the fine arts, who has

already outgrown the school of philosophy, the unfortunately withheld

Fourth Grove of his Critical Forests, and the explosive sketch On the

Sense of Touch, the language essay sets up the four grand pieces docu-menting Herders anthropological turn.82 Each entirely suited to stand on

its own, the essays Sculpture (1770, 1778), On Cognition and Sensibility

(1774, 1775, 1778), On the Lie attached to Man at Birth (1777), and

God: Some Conversations (1787) bring light to the less-explored dimen-

sions of Herder that have intrigued the newer Herder scholarship of the

past quarter century.83

Entitled Nature and History in HerdersReflections on the Philos-

ophy of the History of Humankind, the Pross monograph appended to

the text of theIdeenas a Nachwortmerits detailed attention. The extensive

and meticulous documentation of all the claims made in its two-hundred

pages makes this the culminating formulation of Prosss construal of

Herder (Pross III/1, 8391041). Calling for familiarity with the texts, anno-

tation, and explication of Volumes I and II, the Postscript presents, to begin

with, the themes of the eight chapters that will justify his radical new read-

81 See Wolfgang Pross, ed.,Johann Gottfried Herder. Abhandlung uber den Ursprung derSprache. Text, Materialien, Kommentar(Munich: Hanser 1978).82 For English translations of the Monument to Baumgarten and the first and fourth

Groves of theCritical Forestssee Moore 2006, 4150 and 51290.83 See Adler,Die Pragnanz des Dunklenand Ju rgen Brummack, ed., DKV 4, Commentary97889.

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ing and lead to a fuller understanding of Herders incompletemagnum opus

(83944).

The first three of these chapters then review the prerequisites in the

young Herders day for a philosophy of history rooted in anthropology and

historical methodology (84556), the significance of his first publication in

the field (the radical pamphlet of 1774) and the resulting paradox of an

ephemeral humanity as the ultimate goal of nature (86481). In the fourth

chapter of his guidance of the reader towards a fresh appreciation of Herd-

ers significance Pross presents Herders New Approach. This encom-

passesnotwithstanding all lip service to a faith in Providencea vision

of the world and history that runs diametrically counter to the established

dogmatic faith in a divine guidance of the universe extending into the lifeof the individual who profits from this divinity (881). Chapter five (The

Formation of Criteria: Herder and the Aporias of Tradition, 90584) pres-

ents the traditional barriers in the way of Herders grand undertaking of

an ideally new vision of nature. Determined to challenge them head-on,

Herder finds himself engaged in a difficult process of formulating criteria

that will substantiate his reflections. Chapters six and seven, briefly summa-

rizing and discussing the high points of the twenty books comprising the

Ideen,must be read in the context of their thorough introduction, annota-tion, and interpretation in the remarkable Commentary volume (Pross III/

2, 7908). The commentaries of the first four books ofPart Ibring together

and analyze the vast range of sources in natural science and history that

informed Herders account of Planet Earths emergence as the dwelling,

shaping him and being shaped in turn. Whereas Pross finds these Books

clearly in line with his basic thesis, Book 5 is characterized as problemati-

cal as its purely philosophical and speculative character, [is] running

counter to the empirical approach as it almost entirely foregoes a precisepresentation of material fact (Pross III/2, 309). The extensive page by page

commentary leaves no doubt that Herders overall purpose would have

been better served had Book 5 not been included in the volume at all (Pross

III/2, 30922). Hence, Book 6, with its survey of human expansion across

various climate zones could follow directly upon Book 4, avoiding the

exposure to the criticisms of lacking philosophical competence (Kant) and

theological absurdity in the confession to Spinoza (Jacobi) brought about

by the speculative glances into the hereafter (309). Though Pross finds

that the book [. . .] in the light of the contemporary discussion is signifi-

cantly more rational than it appears to be [. . .], he concludes that for the

time being [. . .] it retarded in part a convincing impact of the entire Part

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I and predisposed the reception of the subsequent Parts of the Ideen

(320). The concentrated effort by Pross to bring out in his commentary the

natural history component of the Ideen, which would soon be central; to

Kants devastating assault on Herders philosophical competence, sets the

tone for the entire commentary volume. With the appearance of Kants

damaging reviews of the Ideenin the JenaAllgemeine Literatur-Zeitungin

1785,84 Herder recognized the critical Kant as his opponent and his

writing becomes increasingly polemical.85

The Otto/Zammito Conference volume (of the Weimar Conference on

HerdersIdeen) appeared just before the publication of Volume III 1 & 2

in 2002. It anticipates many of the issues addressed by Pross and one can

only speculate how the contributors might have reacted had the rich harvestof his research been available to them before the conference. Nevertheless,

the religious dimensions of Herders oeuvre as exemplified in the Ideen

remain essential to his legacy.86 The discussion of Parts III and IV of the

Ideen in Prosss Postscript, Chapter 7, entitled The Historical Evolution

of Humankind in the Third and Fourth Volume of theIdeen: Spinoza versus

Kant guides the reader through one of the earliest and most encompassing

texts of world history and communicates the incompleteness of the entire

project, by pointing to the outline of the projected fifth Part contained in

the Appendix (100621, 115758). In his discussion of Part III Prossalerts the reader to the vital importance of Book 15 in mitigating the dam-

age done by the, in his view, flawed Book 5 (Pross III/I, 101011).

Chapter 8 of the Postscript discussing The Continued Life of the

Ideen: A Retrospect provides invaluable insights and references for anyone

interested in Herders reception and influence (102141). The fact that

there are other readings of Herders works, and more yet to come, does not

diminish Prosss achievement. Rather, it confirms Herders rank among the

very few for whom there is no last word.

Rice University, the University of California at Davis, and Iona Col-

lege.

84 See n. 12: Kant, Recensionen von J.G. Herders Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte

der Menschheit, 1903ff.85 See Ralf Simon, Das kurze Kapitel zur Sprachphilosophie in Herders Ideen, inVomSelbstdenken. Aufklarung und Aufklarungskritik in Herders Ideen zur Philosophie derGeschichte der Menschheit, ed. Regine Otto and John H. Zammito (Heidelberg: Syn-chron 2001), 14556.86 See Arnold, Wisbert, and Wolfes inJohann Gottfried Herder. Aspekte seines Lebensw-erkes, ed. Martin Kessler and Volker Leppin (Berlin: de Gruyter 2005), 38793, 39799;35662; 296307. In the end the Otto/Zammito and Kessler/Leppin volumes must be

seen as necessary complements to the Pross effort.

71.4.zammito

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