Herbart Johann Friedrich (1776–1841), German philosopher who significantly contributed to psychology and the theory of education. Rejecting the idealism of Fichte and Hegel, he attempted to establish a form of psychology founded on experience. The task of philosophy is the analysis of concepts given in ordinary experience. Logic must clarify these concepts, Metaphysics should correct them, while Aesthetics and Ethics are to complement them by an analysis of values. Herbart advocated a form of determinism in psychology and ethics. The laws that govern psychological processes are identical with those that govern the heavens. He subordinated ethics to aesthetics, arguing that our moral values originate from certain immediate and involuntary judgments of like and dislike. The five basic ideas of morality are inner freedom, perfection, benevolence, law, and justice or equity. Herbart’s view of education – that it should aim at producing individuals who possess inner freedom and strength of character – was highly influential in nineteenth-century Germany. M.K. Herder, Johann Gottfried von (1744–1803), German philosopher, an intellectual and literary figure central to the transition from the German Enlightenment to Romanticism. He was born in East Prussia and received an early classical education. About 1762, while studying theology at the University of Königsberg, he came under the influence of Kant. He also began a lifelong friendship with Hamann, who especially stimulated his interests in the interrelations among language, culture, and history. After ordination as a Lutheran minister in 1765, he began his association with the Berlin Academy, earning its prestigious ‘prize’ for his ‘Essay on the Origin of Language’ (1772). In 1776 he was appointed Generalsuperintendent of the Lutheran clergy at Weimar through the intercession of Goethe. He was then able to focus his intellectual and literary powers on most of the major issues of his time. Of particular note are his contributions to psychology in Of the Cognition and Sensation of the Human Soul (1778); to the philosophy of history and culture in Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784–91), perhaps his most influential work; and to philosophy in Understanding and Experience (1799), which contains his extensive Metakritik of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
Herder was an intellectual maverick and provocateur, writing when the Enlightenment conception of reason was in decline but before its limited defense by Kant or its total rejection by Romanticism had become entrenched in the German-speaking world. Rejecting any rational system, Herder’s thought is best viewed as a mosaic of certain ideas that reemerge in various guises throughout his writings. Because of these features, Herder’s thought has been compared with that of Rousseau.
Herder’s philosophy can be described as involving elements of naturalism, organicism, and vitalism. He rejected philosophical explanations, appealing to the supernatural or divine, such as the concept of the ‘immortal soul’ in psychology, a ‘divine origin’ of language, or ‘providence’ in history. He sought to discern an underlying primordial force to account for the psychological unity of the various ‘faculties.’ He viewed this natural tendency toward ‘organic formation’ as also operative in language and culture, and as ultimately manifested in the dynamic development of the various cultures in the form of a universal history. Finally, he often wrote in a way that suggested the dynamic process of life itself as the basic metaphor undergirding his thought.
His influence can be traced through Humboldt into later linguistics and through Schelling and Hegel in the philosophy of history and later German historicism. He anticipated elements of vitalism in Schopenhauer and Bergson. See also NATURALISM , ORGANICISM , PHI- LOSOPHY OF BIOLOG. J.P.Su.