Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder | |
|---|---|
Herder, 1785 | |
| Born | 25 August 1744 Mohrungen, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Died | 18 December 1803 (aged 59) Weimar, Saxe-Weimar, Holy Roman Empire |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Königsberg |
| Academic advisor | Immanuel Kant |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 18th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Enlightenment Counter-Enlightenment Romantic nationalism Anticolonialist cosmopolitanism Sturm und Drang Weimar Classicism Historicism Romantic hermeneutics Classical liberalism |
| Main interests | Philology, philosophy of language, cultural anthropology, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, philosophy of history, political philosophy, philosophy of religion |
| Notable ideas | Thought as dependent on language Teleological conception of history Cultural relativism Volksgeist Empirical approach to the investigation of languages and cultures |
Johann Gottfried von Herder (/ˈhɜːrdər/ HUR-dər; German: [ˈjoːhan ˈɡɔtfʁiːt ˈhɛʁdɐ]; 25 August 1744 – 18 December 1803) was a German philosopher, theologian, pastor, poet, and literary critic. Herder is associated with the Age of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism. He was a Romantic philosopher and poet who argued that true German culture was to be discovered among the common people (das Volk). He also stated that it was through folk songs, folk poetry, and folk dances that the true spirit of the nation (der Volksgeist) was popularized. He is credited with establishing or advancing a number of important disciplines: hermeneutics, linguistics, anthropology, and "a secular philosophy of history."