Tak zwany spór o panteizm był istotnym wydarzeniem filozoficznym w niemieckim krajobrazie intelektualnym dwóch ostatnich dekad XVIII wieku, który spowodował jednocześnie odrodzenie zainteresowania Spinozą w Niemczech. Istnieje ogromna literatura dotycząca tego sporu z perspektywy zarówno filozoficznej, jak i czysto historiograficznej, jednakże pomimo intensywnie dyskutowanej tetralogii Jonathana I. Israela na temat historii oświecenia, wciąż brakuje nowej, szerszej debaty wokół relacji sporu o panteizm do globalnej dynamiki późnego oświecenia i jego wewnętrznych napięć. W artykule omawiane są kluczowe idee sformułowane przez Herdera, Goethego, (...) Fichtego, Kanta, Schleiermachera i Novalisa jako odpowiedzi na 'wyzwanie panteistyczne', które w formie prowokacji przedstawił Jacobi, a następnie pokazane jest, w jaki sposób ujawniają one pewne zasadnicze ideologiczne napięcia typowe dla nowoczesności. Wskazane są dwie podstawowe osie jako środki ciężkości całego sporu: oś transcendencji/immanencji oraz oś autonomii/heteronomii. Twierdzi się, że historyczny fenomen 'panteizmu' nie powinien być a priori wiązany z pewnym konkretnym emancypacyjnym potencjałem, lecz raczej potraktowany jako rodzaj 'soczewki' albo 'narzędzia sondującego' słabe punkty oświecenia i jego zaniedbane problemy, które w wielu przypadkach zostały wykorzystane przez kontroświeceniową reakcję. Podkreśla się jednak, że panteizm jako idea odegrał fundamentalną rolę w szybkim procesie de-eschatologizacji i jednocześnie jest znaczącym symptomem politycznej reorientacji w obrębie nowoczesności w sposób, który jednak nie ma nic wspólnego z tak zwaną klasyczną 'tezą o sekularyzacji' Löwitha, Schmitta czy Taubesa. (shrink)

This article analyses how Rousseau's First Discourse and the questions it posed about human progress and the reform of society were debated in the institutional context of the Berlin Academy by Formey and Herder. Despite some important disagreements, Formey and Herder fundamentally shared Rousseau's assumption that erudition could be detrimental both to society and to the individual. In order to limit the socially corrosive effects of the arts and the sciences, and in an attempt to realize their full beneficent potential, (...) they called for their reform through institutional regulation and management by a meritocracy of scholarly experts. Drawing on Hume, Herder in particular developed a positive role for the modern state as an active agent of enlightenment, provided it not only promoted the arts and sciences but also guaranteed freedom and the rule of law to ensure their flourishing. (shrink)

Some of Herder's most striking ideas stemmed from his early evaluation of German literary publicity, which to his mind stood in stark contrast to conditions in the sociable world. Such a predicament bespeaks the importance of considering the relationship between printed text and lived sociability in the Enlightenment. By charting the heady twists and turns in his intellectual development from 1765 to 1769, this essay treats the young Herder in what for him became an aesthetically charged field between the two. (...) The public which he came to envision would be manifest to the senses, at least to the extent that it might be by the reader of print, but it also amounted to a surrogate for the more tangibly sensual experience of face-to-face community. (shrink)

The fifth chapter of _Experience Embodied_ is devoted to Herder’s theory of cognition and the epistemic merits of the capacity for ‘sympathy’, or ‘empathy’ – what Herder calls _Einfühlung_, and which Waldow renders more accurately as ‘affective immersion’. I situate Waldow’s reading of Herder as a member of the epistemological tradition within the debate on Herder’s relationship to the Enlightenment. Waldow’s reading, I contend, is congruent with the view of Herder as an Enlightenment, rather than anti-Enlightenment, figure. I focus on (...) what Waldow calls ‘the problem of the conceivability of difference’ (Waldow 2020, 185) and how she charts Herder’s proposed method of Einfühlung and the need for ‘affective immersion’ to address this problem. However, I also identify three potential problems, which Waldow does not address, that can arise when _Einfühlung_is taken too far: the first is that it may lead to relativism, and thus to incoherence; the second is reductionism, which can eliminate, rather than draw attention to, difference – thereby achieving the opposite goal; while the third is that relying solely on _Einfühlung_as a method can lead us into error, as it is speculative and lacks an external truth criterion. (shrink)

Charles Taylor's influential exposition of Hegel made the doctrine of expressivism of central importance and identified Herder as its exemplary historical advocate. The breadth and generality of Taylor's use of ?expressivism? have led the concept into some disrepute, but a more precise formulation of the doctrine as a theory of meaning can both demonstrate what is worthwhile and accurate in Taylor's account, and allow us a useful point of entry into Herder's multifaceted philosophy. A reconstruction of Herder's overall philosophical position, (...) centred around a refined theory of what this paper labels ?Herderean expressivism?, reveals a naturalistic, teleological metaphysics. This metaphysics fulfils the Hegelian aim of providing what Dieter Henrich has called a ?feedback loop? between ontology and epistemology. Exploring Herder's expressivism, therefore, helps further the case for his decisive impact on Hegel's philosophy. Herder's methodological naturalism, however, represents an obstacle to Hegel's absolute idealism. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explore the relationship between Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin’s theoretical apparatus and ideas of the immediate precursors of the Jena Romantik school of German Romanticism: Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788) and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803). In doing so, it examines the themes and treatments that are common to these two thinkers and Bakhtin, tracing the tradition of anti-systematic thought through Hamann, Nietzsche and Bakhtin, and the transmission of Herder’s philosophy of Bildung through the Russian cultural milieu and Goethe. Initially, (...) the paper briefly outlines the early German Romantic ‘school’ of philosophy as a prelude to a more detailed examination of the ways in which Bakhtin assimilated German philosophy in general. The paper’s section on Hamann commences with a review of his background, using this as a basis for establishing connections between Hamann’s approach to communication and that of Bakhtin, based on a common epistemology focused on the self. The section on Herder is centred on his concept of Bildung and his historicist approach to literature, both of which interests Bakhtin shared. The paper then examines a number of conduits for Herder’s thought to Bakhtin, including Kant and Goethe. The paper concludes by examining Isaiah Berlin’s notion of the ‘Counter-Enlightenment’—in which movement he includes both Hamann and Herder—and the extent to which Bakhtin could be said to form part of this tradition. (shrink)