Herder and Enlightenment Politics

Offers a new interpretation of Johann Gottfried Herder's political thought, situating his ideas in pan-European Enlightenment debates.

Eva Piirimäe (Author)

9781009263832, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 February 2025

398 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.574 kg

'A great book, which will, I hope, greatly expand the scholarly appreciation of [Herder's] thinking in English-speaking circles … with exceptionally deep and broad consideration and contextualization of Herder's voluminous writings, putting his many essays and arguments into their specific historical, political, and spatial environs, and posing them against the writings of others that he was reading and responding to at specific points in time … I suspect that I will not be alone in therefore finding myself, especially as an English-speaking fan of Herder's life and ideas, very much in Piirimäe's debt.' Russell Arben Fox, The European Legacy

Johann Gottfried Herder initiated the modern disciplines of philosophical anthropology and cultural history, including the study of popular culture. He is also remembered as a sharp critic of colonialism and imperialism. But what types of social, economic and political arrangements did Herder envision for modern European societies? Herder and Enlightenment Politics provides a radically new interpretation of Herder's political thought, situating his ideas in Enlightenment debates on modern patriotism, commerce and peace. By reconstructing Herder's engagement with Rousseau, Montesquieu, Abbt, Ferguson, Möser, Kant and many other contemporary authors, Eva Piirimäe shows that Herder was deeply interested in the potential for cultural, moral and political reform in Russia, Germany and Europe. Herder probed the foundations of modern liberty, community and peace, developing a distinctive understanding of human self-determination, natural sociability and modern patriotism as well as advocating a vision of Europe as a commercially and culturally interconnected community of peoples.

Preface
Introduction
1. Republics, monarchies and the philosophy of human society
2. Rousseau and the origins of the 'current malaise of the world'
3. Montesquieu's system and reforms in Russia
4. The Bildung of humanity and modern virtue
5. German freedom and modern liberty
6. The vocation of poets, pastors and philosophers
7. State-Machines, commerce and the progress of Humanität in Europe
8. Perpetual peace and purified patriotism
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP], Western philosophy: Enlightenment [HPCD1], European history [HBJD]