Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind

Chicago: UNiv. Chicago, 1968. First thus. Octavo in red cloth and blue jacket; xxvii, 401 pages; index Slight must else near fine in vg(-) rubbed jacket. Hardcover.

Frank E. Manuel’s abridgment of Herder’s Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, Abridged English version of Herder’s Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–91), the unfinished four-part synthesis that recast universal history as the organic growth and interaction of distinct peoples (Völker), each shaped by climate, geography and language, rather than as a single march of reason. Opens in the heavens and on the earth’s surface before arriving at humankind; ranges over species, race, the soul’s immortality, the founding of society and the rise and fall of the ancient empires, culminating in Book XV’s claim that Humanität is the end of human nature and that mankind holds its fate in its own hands. Written in open dialogue with Montesquieu, Buffon, Rousseau, Ferguson and Gibbon, and the occasion of Kant’s severe 1785 reviews, a quarrel that set Herder’s pluralist historicism against Kantian universal teleology. A founding text of cultural nationalism, the philosophy of history and the anthropology of culture, foundational for Hegel and the German historical school. The editor’s introduction situates the work within Enlightenment thought and its reception; the abridgment preserves the argument’s arc across all four partClassic European historians [series].History -- Philosophy. Class Descriptors: Dewey: 838.609 Responsibility: Johann Gottfried von Herder; abridged and with an introduction by Frank E. Manuel.= Ideen Zur Philosophie Der Geschichte Der Menschheit. English