Herder Moment:Study On Herder’s Political And Social Thoughts

Johann Gottfried Herder is a figure that has been ignored in the history of German thoughts for a long time. Herder lives in the crucial times of the germination of German thoughts. He is not only the mentor and close friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, but also the prodigy of Immanuel Kant. Herder inherits the idea of enlightenment and rationalism, which has already developed during 17th century, combines them with his understandings towards the age and world he lives in and creates his own thoughts about nation. In fact, Herder is one of the first thinkers who discovered the tremendous power the so-called Nation has in accordance to its cultural, political and social meaning. With the spread of the thoughts of Herder and other thinkers, nation develops vigorously in Europe and the basic structure of the modern ideas of nation and nation-state gradually comes into existence. Moreover, Herder’s thinking on nation both posed its influence on 18th century Europe and the world we live today.However, in spite of the fact that Herder is usually referred as the father of Nationalism and thus is treated as a negative thinker, his contribution to the history of thoughts and ideas contains far more than his thoughts on nation. He does not only inspire the generation of classical writers including Goethe with his understanding on national literature and mother tongue, but also illuminates the German Romanticism, especially the early Jena romanticism with his reflections on nature, history and language. Even though he eventually went apart with Kant, but his disputes with Kant actually represents two different way of understanding the human nature and reason. Besides, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the so-called disciple of Kant, cannot construct his nationalism without Herder’s thoughts on language and nation. Further more, Hegel also absorbed Herder’s theory although he never admitted it. It is reasonable to say that Herder is a crucial person in the process of the dazzling development of German culture who stands in between the classicism and romanticism, criticizes the hegemony of French enlightenment, corrects people’s biased understanding on "human being" and explores the deeper force and laws in humanity and history.On a boarder sense, Herder is actually a comprehensive thinker who influences nearly all aspects in western thoughts from linguistics to anthropology, from poetics to aesthetics, from philosophy to hermeneutics, from theology to the philosophy of history, from culture to politics and sociology. If we consider political philosophy as the knowledge of human being, the study on Herder’s thoughts is both necessary and highly related. Consequently, we can classify Herder as a genuine political thinker. Nevertheless, it is the abundance and complexities of Herder’s thoughts cause the difficulties of studying them from the perspective of modern discipline.This study tries to regard Herder as a general thinker of politics and restitute the key ideas in his thoughts that play important roles in modern society. In order to achieve this, it adopts the approach of Cambridge history school and bases on the context of the time where Herder lived in. Secondly, the study will both refer to the studies of Isaiah Berlin, F. M. Barnard, Friedrich Meinecke, etc. and combine the writings of Herder to explore ideas like language, nation, humanitat, history, etc. Thirdly, this study draws comparison between Herder vs. Kant and Herder vs. Rousseau to show that he realizes the limitation of reason which Kant has never admit and constitutes a more practical plan of the society than Rousseau’s.In conclusion, When we manage to get rid of the prejudice from history and the habit of ideas, we will realize that Herder’s distinct and groundbreaking thoughts is more than some materials in the history of thoughts and ideas, it will continually shine in the temporal world and the future.