This book, originally published in 1970 and later given the ISBN 978-0-900547-06-5, was made Open Access in 2024 as part of the MHRA Revivals programme.
Chapter I: Introduction. 1. Herder’s intellectual personality - 2. Herder scholarship and the history of scientific thought - 3. Herder’s concept of ‘Kraft’. Chapter II: Methodology. 1. Subjectivity and objectivity - 2. Anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism, and the ‘type’ theory - 3. The analogical method - 4. Comparison and classification - 5. Causality and teleology - 6. Holism and organicism - 7. The study of origins and the ‘genetic method’ - 8. The idea of development, and cyclic theories of change - 9. The dialectical method - 10. Mathematics and pseudo-laws - 11. The formulation of natural laws - 12. Levels of organization in the natural world.
Chapter III: The Physical Sciences. 1. The nature of the physical world - 2. Astronomy and the theory of gravity - 3. General physics and chemistry - 4. The geological sciences and cosmogony; meteorology; geography. Chapter IV: The Biological Sciences. 1. The nature of the biological world: definitions of life - 2. Ontogeny - 3. Ontogeny and phylogeny - 4. Phylogeny: the problem of evolution. Chapter V: The Sciences of Man. 1. Physical anthropology: man and the other animals; medicine - 2. Psychology - 3. Sociology and social anthropology - 4. Economics and commerce.
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Part III: Science in Herder’s Thought and Herder’s Place in Science H. B. Nisbet doi:10.59860/td.c6b535c
Chapter VI: The Place of Science in Herder’s Thought. 1. Herder’s view of knowledge as a whole - 2. Science and history - 3. Science and education - 4. Science and religion - 5. Science and mysticism - 6. Science and art: nature and aesthetic values - 7. Man’s relationship with nature, and the aims of science. Chapter VII: Herder’s Place in the Scientific Tradition. 1. Herder’s influence on science - 2. Herder’s influence on the philosophy of nature and science - 3. Herder and the scientific tradition.
In Herder’s philosophy of nature and science, the general methods he uses to describe and classify natural phenomena are his greatest contribution to the scientific tradition, and, from the point of view of today, his particular scientific theories are of secondary importance. Nevertheless, these theories are backed up by a very extensive reading, and they provide us with a remarkably full picture of the state of science in the eighteenth century and the age of Goethe, who was more profoundly influenced by Herder’s ideas than has hitherto been suspected. As for influences at work upon Herder, it has emerged in the course of this study that the earlier ideas of Kant, his old teacher, were by far the greatest single influence upon his own scientific thought, even in matters of detail. On a more abstract level, the influence of Leibniz is only slightly less obvious.
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