Johann Gottfried Herder: Kulturtheorie und Humanitätsidee der Ideen, Humanitätsbriefe und Adrasta (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Johann Gottfried Herder: Kulturtheorie und Humanitätsidee der Ideen, Humanitätsbriefe und Adrasta Katherine Arens Anne Löchte. Johann Gottfried Herder: Kulturtheorie und Humanitätsidee der Ideen, Humanitätsbriefeund Adrasta. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005. 236 pp. € 34.80 (Paperback). ISBN 3-8260-3105-9. Löchte’s book originates in a 2004 dissertation written at the Technische Universität in Berlin under the supervision of Conrad Wiedemann. As the title indicates, it addresses Herder’s theory of culture and his theory of humanity, with the goal of recapturing from behind the many myths the thinker associated with the rise of historicism, a historical anthropology of culture, and nationalism. Although nominally framed as a historical investigation in Herder’s thought, this discussion actually offers a close reading of the three major texts of the title, tracing how Herder approached the particularlism, universalism, or pluralism of cultures. Part one outlines Löchte’s point of departure, the tension in Herder’s work between universalism and particularism in his conceptions of nations, peoples, cultures, and history. As she sets this thesis into a solid account of the secondary literature, she notes that Herder’s early work is often treated by secondary literature (particularly 1774’s Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit) and the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–91), yet not the later work. Thus the author seeks to extend the standard approach to Herder by juxtaposing the more famous texts to the Briefe zur Beförderung der Menschheit (1793–97) and Adrasta (1801–1804), which allows her to trace the evolution of his ideas about humanity in an age of colonialism. Löchte emphasizes that she does not intend to take on other scholars polemically (“Diese Arbeit ist bewusst sachlich gehalten”; 11), but rather to question assertions made about Herder’s purported universalism of cultural values, since he clearly describes history as a specificity of many factors. Part two, “Grundlagen von Herders Kulturtheorie und Humanitätsidee” (27), offers in its two chapters outlines of Herder’s definitions of culture, anthropology, and the human and humanity. Each of these is defined with careful attention to the texts (and appropriate references to specific passages). Part three of the book (two-thirds of its length, five chapters) traces Herder’s definitions of cultures and nations, including chapters on his understanding of peoples and nature, cultural contact, religious pluralism, and “Relativismus, Pluralismus, Universalismus?” (203). A brief part four, Ergebnisse, ties the accounts together. In all there is much to appreciate in Löchte’s expositions. She takes on a careful thematic/topical analysis of a relatively understudied body of texts, as she shows quite precisely how Herder evolved his notions of nature and culture, the state and the nation. Her text is clearly written and thoroughly documented with reference to the primary texts. It should become a standard account in the Herder literature, as a careful conceptual analysis of these important texts. This Johann Gottfried Herder does not so much revise as amplify and nuance standard accounts in ways that should not be overlooked. At the same time, however, there is much to be wished for here. Löchte bases her exposition on the major reference points in the Herder literature, but her selections underrepresent the contributions by English-language writers. This is a significant lacuna, given that the International Herder Society was founded in California in 1985 [End Page 291] and that its Yearbook – the publication of record in this area – has most often been edited in the US, with both entities being truly bilingual and international in their scholarly reach. Some of this may be accounted for by Löchte’s clear preference for H. B. Nisbet’s Herder – a Herder set next to philosophy’s concept of Kant and German idealism – rather than for the broader cosmopolitan intellectual who might warrant a profitable approach. Such a choice automatically leads to a modernization of argument and perhaps even to unconscious skews in interpretation, such as discussing religious pluralism without taking on the question of religious hermeneutics and the place of salvation history next to secular concepts, a convention of Herder’s eighteenth century...