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Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind

Online ISBN:
9780691255705
Print ISBN:
9780691147185
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Book

Ideas for the Philosophy of the History of Mankind

Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder
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Published online:
19 September 2024
Published in print:
27 February 2024
Online ISBN:
9780691255705
Print ISBN:
9780691147185
Publisher:
Princeton University Press

Abstract

Published in four volumes between 1784 and 1791, this work is one of the most important of the Enlightenment—a bold, original, and encyclopedic synthesis of, and contribution to, the era's philosophical debates over nature, history, culture, and the very meaning of human experience. This is the first new, unabridged English translation of the work in more than two centuries. The lively, modern English text, extensive introduction, and commentary bring this neglected masterpiece back to life. The work—which engages with many of the leading thinkers of the eighteenth century, such as Montesquieu, Kant, Gibbon, Ferguson, Buffon, and Rousseau—is many things at once: an inquiry into the unity and purpose of history, a reflection on human nature and the place of humans in the cosmic order, an examination of what was beginning to be called “culture,” and a narrative of cultural progress across time among different peoples. Along the way, a dizzying variety of topics is considered, including the formation of the Earth and solar system, species change, race, the immortality of the soul, the establishment of society, and the pursuit of happiness. Above all, the work is an anthropology—what Alexander Pope had termed an “essay on man”—pervaded by an appropriately humane spirit, and it reintroduces English readers to a classic of Enlightenment thought.

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