4 - Herder's Concept of Humanität

Summary

In memoriam Pierre Pénisson

The Reputation of Herder's Term Humanität

JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER HAS long been known for having developed groundbreaking concepts of thought as well as having modified those of others decisively. Humanität is — along with concepts such as origin, history, culture, Volk, and language — one of the core concepts of Herder's works. As a matter of fact, Humanität is Herder's all-encompassing concept. All his thinking, writing, and actions were centered around it. In short: Herder was the philosopher of Humanität. Not only has Herder often been called “the philosopher of humanity”; he has also been accused of being the proponent of a vague “philanthropy.” The fact that scholars have conflated the concepts of philanthropy and Humanität — an equation that Herder explicitly was not aiming at — has resulted in a long history of misunderstanding in the reception of Humanität. Herder himself indeed seems to provide reasons for those confusions. In his book on Herder and the Enlightenment, Emil Adler wrote at the beginning of his chapter on Humanität:

Einleitend sei hervorgehoben — was vielen Forschern auffiel —, daß die Humanitätsidee, die führende Idee der deutschen Klassik und eine der bedeutendsten Ideen des 18. Jahrhunderts, bei Herder keine exaktere Definierung findet, obwohl es sich um den wichtigsten Begriff seiner Philosophie handelte. Nicht präzisierte Definitionen und oftmals widersprechende Äußerungen verschleierten den tatsächlich unbestrittenen Sinn dieses Begriffes. (311)

[By way of introduction may it be emphasized — as has occurred to many researchers — that the idea of humanity, the leading idea of German Classicism and one of the most important ideas of the eighteenth century, finds in Herder no more exact definition, although it was the most important concept of his philosophy. Imprecise definitions and often contradictory statements obscured the meaning of this concept, which was in fact beyond dispute.]

In 1991, one of the most experienced Herder scholars, Hans Dietrich Irmscher, stated in his edition of the Briefe zu Beförderung der Humanität: “Nicht nur die bisherige Forschung, auch Herder selbst hatte Schwierigkeiten, ‘Humanität’ eindeutig zu bestimmen” (Hum, FA 7:817; Not only the research thus far, but also Herder himself had difficulties defining “humanity” clearly).

We are confronted with the paradox that Herder's term Humanität enjoys high esteem within the community of Herder scholars past and present, although a definition of the term seems to be impossible.