Student of Kant
Born in East Prussia and trained under Kant, he turned against the cold universal reason of the age.
A student of Kant who turned against the cold universal reason of the age, Herder argued that humanity does not come in one standard model but in a garden of distinct cultures, each with its own spirit, shaped by climate, history, and above all language. To think, for Herder, is to think in a particular tongue, so every people sees a world no other can quite enter. He gathered folk songs, championed the value of the supposedly primitive, and read history as the unfolding of human variety rather than a march toward a single goal. From him flow modern ideas of culture, nationalism, and the historical understanding of the mind.
Born in East Prussia and trained under Kant, he turned against the cold universal reason of the age.