Herder: Aesthetics against Imperialism
© 2015
Among his generation of intellectuals, the eighteenth-century German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder is recognized both for his innovative philosophy of language and history and for his passionate criticism of racism, colonialism, and imperialism. A student of Immanuel Kant, Herder challenged the idea that anyone – even the philosophers of the Enlightenment – could have a monopoly on truth.
In Herder: Aesthetics against Imperialism, John K. Noyes plumbs the connections between Herder’s anti-imperialism, often acknowledged but rarely explored in depth, and his epistemological investigations. Noyes argues that Herder’s anti-rationalist epistemology, his rejection of universal conceptions of truth, knowledge, and justice, constitutes the first attempt to establish not just a moral but an epistemological foundation for anti-imperialism. Engaging with the work of postcolonial theorists such Dipesh Chakrabarty and Gayatri Spivak, this book is a valuable reassessment of Enlightenment anti-imperialism that demonstrates Herder’s continuing relevance to postcolonial studies today.
Product Details
- Series: German and European Studies
- World Rights
- Page Count: 416 pages
- Illustrations: 10
- Dimensions: 6.4in x 1.3in x 9.3in
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Reviews
‘A profound source of philosophical interpretation, which is very close to the source, in which Herder’s significance for the current discourse of global history and anti-imperialism is of surprising actuality.’
Michael Maurer
H-Soz-u-Kult March 2017‘While displaying a remarkable suppleness, Noyes strikes a cogent, yet nuanced balance between probing, sensitive readings of Herder’s and his Enlightenment contemporaries’ texts on the one hand, and, on the other, deliberative, thought-provoking critical commentary on current Herder scholarship.’
David R. Greeves
Arcadia vol 52:03:2017“In the eight meticulously orchestrated chapters of his book, Herder: Aesthetics and Imperialism,John Noyes develops step-by-step how J.G. Herder’s anti-imperialism is systematically founded in his anthropological concept of aesthetics. It is a pleasure to follow Noyes’ lucidly written argument, and his dialectics of aesthetics and imperialism is particularly engaging. This book illuminates hitherto undiscovered relationships between aesthetics and politics in Herder’s thinking and simultaneously offers a critical contribution to running debates within the context of post-colonialism.”
Hans Adler, Halls-Bascom Professor for Modern Literature Studies, Department of German, University of Wisconsin-Madison -
Author Information
John K. Noyes is a professor in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Toronto.
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Table of contents
Introduction: Postcolonial Theory and Herder’s Anti-Imperialism
Chapter 1: From Epistemology to Aesthetics
Chapter 2: From Organic Life to the Politics of Interpretation
Chapter 3: From Human Restlessness to the Politics of Difference
Chapter 4: From the Location of Language to the Multiplicity of Reason
Chapter 5: From Human Diversity to the Politics of Natural Development
Chapter 6: The Aesthetics of Revolution and the Critique of Imperialism
Conclusion: Herder, Postcolonialism, and the Antinomy of Universal Reason
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Prizes
Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures
- Winner in 2016 -
Subjects and Courses
