From the Enquiry (1757) to the Fourth Kritisches Wäldchen (1769): Burke and Herder on the Division of the Senses

Abstract

This article is on Herder’s presentation and evaluation of Burke’s Enquiry. Johann Gottfried Herder, in the second half of the XVIIIth century, contemporary of Kant, assimilates an astonishing amount of philosophical information representing all tendencies of European Enlightenment. Herder knows very well the British empiricist tradition (he quotes frequently Bacon and Locke). Moreover, Herder wants to synthesize the philosophies of his time in the very original constellations of his own philosophy of history, philosophy of language and aesthetics. The first section of the article is on Burke’s reception in Germany, especially of the Enquiry. In a second section Herder’s comments of Burke are analyzed in concreto - there are in fact two important passages in Herder’s works where Burke is commented upon and discussed. The second passage, the most substantial one, concerns the classical problem in aesthetics, of the division of the senses, mainly of the hierarchy between seeing, hearing and touching. In the third section Herder’s conception of these problemata is presented in a more systematic way, and in the fourth section Burke’s. In a fifth section, there is an evaluative confrontation of Herder’s and Burke’s aesthetic theories on these points.