Johann Gottfried Herder

German philosopher and theologian

• Born: August 25, 1744
• Birthplace: Mohrungen, East Prussia (now Morag, Poland)
• Died: December 18, 1803
• Place of death: Weimar, Saxe-Weimar (now in Germany)

Herder was a major figure in the transitional period in German letters that encompassed the second half of the eighteenth century. He was a universalist whose writings dealt with many areas of human thought.

Early Life

Johann Gottfried Herder (yoh-HAHN GAWT-freet HUR-duhr) was born on August 25, 1744, in the small East Prussian town of Mohrungen. He came from a family of modest financial resources; his father worked as a teacher, organist, and church warden. Both parents were pious people, and Herder grew up influenced by the moderate Pietist ideas common in the clergy at this time, which were opposed to orthodoxy and dogma in favor of a more personal, inner-directed religious life.

Herder had two sisters, who married and remained in Mohrungen. He showed his great desire to study rather early in life. While in Latin school, he became the favorite student of the stern schoolmaster, and at the age of sixteen he obtained free lodging with a vicar named Sebastian Trescho in exchange for work as a copyist. This arrangement was particularly advantageous for Herder because the vicar had an excellent library, where Herder could satisfy his avid desire to read.

Although Herder wished to attend the university, family finances might have made that impossible. Fortunately, when the Russian troops moved into the region in 1762, the regimental surgeon met Herder and generously offered to pay for his medical studies at Königsberg. In the spring of that year, Herder enrolled in medicine at the university, but he was clearly not suited to that field. Changing his field to theology, he lost his benefactor’s support but was able to finance his own studies with a stipend and money earned by tutoring at the Collegium Fridericianum.

In Königsberg, Herder met Johann Georg Hamann, whose ideas greatly influenced him even though his own philosophical views differed from Hamann’s, for example, on the origin of language. Hamann’s thoughts on the Bible inspired some of Herder’s early attempts at a better understanding of the book through its poetic medium and an understanding of its social and historical context. During those same years, Herder attended lectures by Immanuel Kant on a wide range of subjects, which offered stimulus to his thought, as did contact with humanistic and humanitarian ideas, such as those of the Deutsche Gesellschaft (German Society).

Life’s Work

In 1764, Herder began his professional life in the Domschule of Riga. He stayed for five years, during which time he became a successful teacher and preacher and published his first two books, Über die neuere deutsche Literatur: Fragmente (1767; on recent German literature: fragments) and Kritische Wälder (1769; critical forests), which brought him recognition and also criticism. His ideas about language became central to many other parts of his thinking as well. In his literary criticism, Herder rejects absolute standards and argues instead that the critic must enter into the spirit of the literary work, judging it from the point of view of its intentions.

In 1769, Herder departed from Riga for France. He spent several months in Nantes, where he wrote a type of diary of his voyage, revealing important parts of his inner life (not for publication). His intended destination was Paris, which he found that he disliked, and he soon left to accompany the prince-bishop of Oldenburg-Eutin’s son on a three-year tour. He first went to the Netherlands and then continued on to Hamburg, where he met Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Matthias Claudius. The companion role did not suit Herder, so he soon separated from the prince; however, the tour did bring him in contact with his future wife, Karoline Flachsland, in Darmstadt. After an unsuccessful eye operation in Strasbourg, he met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1770. Herder’s ideas on language, the historical development of humanity, and Hebrew poetry in the Old Testament had a great influence on the young Goethe. Herder was working on Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache (1772; Treatise upon the Origin of Language, 1827), which was awarded a prize from the Prussian Academy of Sciences and which was something of a nucleus for future works. Through his organic philosophy of history and his recourse to the senses, Herder became recognized as a leading figure of the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) literary movement.

Also in 1771, Herder decided to accept a church position as a Hofprediger, or court preacher, in Bückeburg so that he could be married, and he began a period of intensive writing. Herder’s views put him in conflict with Count Wilhelm of Schaumburg-Lippe, since Herder defended the rights of the Church. At the same time, the clergy found him too liberal. When he was unable to move to Göttingen as a theology professor because of opposition from the other clergy, he took a position in Weimar, which Goethe helped him obtain.

Herder moved to Weimar in 1776, where he remained, although he complained that his efforts—in church and school reform, for example—were not appreciated. Herder’s relationship with Goethe was difficult now that they were peers, but a period of friendship and collaboration followed, which lasted from 1783 to 1789. A serious rift occurred in 1794, when Goethe’s friendship with Friedrich Schiller deepened. Jealousy created part of the conflict; however, another part was clearly a difference of philosophical opinion.

Herder was extremely productive in Weimar, writing some of his most important works, including Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784-1791; Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man, 1800), often considered his most important work. His plan to write a fifth part was abandoned with the outbreak of the French Revolution. Instead, he began his Briefe zu Beförderung der Humanität (1793-1797; Letters for the Advancement of Humanity, 1800), in which he included some indirect commentary on events of the time. Herder saw human history as a natural development according to universal laws. His point of view was a religious humanism based on his conviction that creation was an indivisible whole. Furthermore, although he wished to take into account advances in science, he did not accept a mechanistic view of nature. Herder believed that both history and nature reflected the working of a divine spirit and that gradual progress was taking place. The French Revolution, however, caused him to doubt his views. His most mature religious ideas, making explicit his conception of God by combining a dynamic concept of nature with the idea of a divine immanence, appeared in his work Gott: Einige Gespräche (1787; God: Some Conversations, 1940).

Herder joined Goethe and Schiller in their project of a nonpolitical journal, Die Horen (1795-1797), but withdrew after an argument with Schiller about the role of literature in society. Also during this time, Herder became more and more hostile to Immanuel Kant’s ideas. In 1785, Kant harshly reviewed the first two parts of Herder’s major work, Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man, and in 1799, Herder retaliated by criticizing several of Kant’s major works.

Herder’s later work includes many shorter pieces. His last collection, Adrastea (1801-1804), which remained unfinished, comprised a discussion of eighteenth century history, culture, and religious ideas, including New Testament studies. His criticism of his times is also evident.

Herder felt isolated in Weimar after his break with Goethe and his criticism of the classical movement, although his friendship with Jean Paul Richter lessened this feeling somewhat. Toward the end of his life, Herder was interrupted in his work by illness. He died on December 18, 1803, leaving behind an extensive body of work.

Significance

Johann Gottfried Herder was a major figure of the eighteenth century whose ideas had an impact on his age and on the nineteenth century in many areas of thought. Most commonly, he is acknowledged as a stimulus for the Sturm und Drang writers, including Goethe, and is counted among the critics of Kant’s philosophical ideas as well as of German classicism.

In his writing, Herder attempted to achieve a type of synthesis that is associated with the universality of a Renaissance man. He wrote on religion, society, history, literary criticism, psychology, science, education, aesthetics, and the arts. He attempted to capture the totality of human experience, seeing creation as an organic whole, and rejected rationalism and any type of philosophical system, such as that proposed by Kant. Although maintaining his religious ties, he saw religion as something that should serve humanity, and he was equally opposed to orthodoxy (dogmatism) and antireligious secularization. Herder viewed the human soul as an entity where a person’s powers are in harmony. The body is the mediator for the soul in its relationship with the material world, but the soul is the center of creative powers and has within it the drive toward perfection (Humanität).

As a thinker, Herder constantly sought to reconcile opposing currents in the intellectual community and within his own views. For example, he attempted to reconcile the early influence of Hamann’s transcendental ideas with empiricism, gained in part by Kant’s early influence; he synthesized religious and scientific elements; and he tried to balance some of the irrationalism of Sturm und Drang with more rationalist ideas. The result is an important body of writing with a rather consistent view developed from his first major works through his final essays. Herder influenced many of his important contemporaries, especially Goethe, but, unfortunately, by the 1790’s his ideas were in conflict with the dominant values of classicism and the beginnings of Romanticism. Still, he was a keen observer of historical and cultural movements. His greatest importance may well be in sowing ideas which others later brought to fruition.

Bibliography

Barnard, F. M. Herder’s Social and Political Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1965. A study of the development of Herder’s concept of organism and organic politics, ending with an assessment of his impact on German political Romanticism and of his immediate influence outside Germany. The discussion also includes a separate chapter on the central concept of Humanität in relation to religion, ethics, and politics.

Clark, Robert T. Herder: His Life and Thought. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1955. The most detailed Herder biography available in English, including a characterization of his important works set against the intellectual background of his time. Contains many quotations from Herder’s work in English translation as well as an extensive bibliography, with a listing of available translations.

Fugate, Joe K. The Psychological Basis of Herder’s Aesthetics. The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton, 1966. A discussion of the aesthetic questions considered by Herder from the perspective of his psychological ideas and principles. Fugate argues that in Herder’s work, human endeavors in the arts cannot be understood without taking into account the powers inherent in the human soul. A bibliography includes general works and individual studies pertaining to Herder, some in English.

Herder, Johann Gottfried. God: Some Conversations. Translated with an introduction and notes by Frederick H. Burkhardt. New York: Hafner Press, 1949. The book’s introduction discusses Herder’s development and places this work in the context of his times, relating it specifically to Immanuel Kant and Baruch Spinoza. Serving as a table of contents, there is a brief summary of each of the five conversations and the epilogue.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Philosophical Writings. Translated and edited by Michael N. Forster. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Features some of Herder’s essays on the philosophy of language, the mind, history, and politics. Includes an introductory essay.

Koepke, Wulf. Johann Gottfried Herder. Boston: Twayne, 1987. A general introduction for the nonspecialist. Koepke follows the unity in Herder’s ideas and concerns through his life in historical sequence and emphasizes the importance of Herder’s own achievements rather than viewing him mainly as Goethe’s mentor or as a figure whose ideas were incorporated and improved by his successors. Useful annotated bibliography.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗, ed. Johann Gottfried Herder: Innovator Through the Ages. Bonn, Germany: Bouvier, 1982. Eleven articles by different authors, reflecting some of the concerns of North American scholarship on Herder. Among the topics are the concept of Humanität, Herder’s language model, and his theological writings. Includes a bibliography of mostly German-language sources and a useful index of names and works.

Nisbet, H. B. Herder and the Philosophy and History of Science. Cambridge, England: Modern Humanities Research Association, 1970. A detailed consideration of Herder’s place in the history of the social, biological, and physical sciences. Nisbet argues that far from subscribing to Johann Hamann’s antiscientific irrationalism, Herder affirmed the value of science in human history. Extensive bibliography on the subject, including works in German and English.

Schick, Edgar B. Metaphorical Organicism in Herder’s Early Works: A Study of the Relation of Herder’s Literary Idiom to His World-View. The Hague, the Netherlands: Mouton, 1971. A focused study of Herder’s essays up to 1778, showing metaphors of organicism as central to an understanding of the work. Schick applies his thesis to Herder’s writings on language, aesthetics, literary criticism, and historical development, concluding with an assessment of the conservative and innovative elements in Herder’s organicist thought.

Zammito, John H. Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Examination of Herder’s friendship with his teacher Kant, which eventually ended in bitter rivalry. Compares and contrasts their differing philosophies, describing how Herder’s reinterpretation of Kant’s ideas created the new science of anthropology.