Herder’s Idea of Historical Childhood

Abstract

In his historical and anthropological writings, Johann Gottfried Herder fashioned a narrative comparing the maturation of the human species to the maturation of the individual. Within this schema, non-European peoples were described as existing in a state of historical childhood. But unlike later thinkers, who deployed this narrative as a justification of the civilizing mission, Herder mobilized it to call the colonialist project into question. Exploring the place of the idea of historical childhood in Herder’s thought, this paper examines both the complexities of its function in historical and anthropological discourse and its role in the temporalization of cultures.