J. G. Herder: From Cognition to Cultural Science /
Von der Erkenntnis zur Kulturwissenschaft
 
Contributions based on the 2014 Conference of the International Herder Society at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana  
Edited by Beate Allert  

2016, 460 pp., paperback
€ 45,00 [D]
ISBN 978-3-939381-89-1

 

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744 –1803) contributed profound insights with respect to rationalizing a shared understanding of the fundamental importance of sense perceptions, language, and knowledge formation. To him “Erkenntnis” also means “Kognition” and cognition is an open-ended process connecting the innermost sense perceptions and feelings from the bottom of the soul to an approach to cultural science (“Kulturwissenschaft”). All sense perceptions are based on physicality and lived experiences that are linked with each person’s specific space and time in history. Herder anticipates phenomenology by challenging the mind–body split that marks Kantian philosophy, the mainstream reception of Romanticism, and major contemporary discourses separating the Liberal Arts from the Sciences. As the essays in this volume elaborate, Herder offers a fascinating alternative approach. His gnoseology or concept of cognition is based on language that does not only begin with articulation but is already embedded in the faintest perceptions of images, sounds, and movements. Herder’s conceptual framework contains key elements that enable us to construct a platform for a relevant interdisciplinary theory of cognition and cultural science based on sense perceptions, synesthesia, and aisthesis. This book contains 25 essays, the expanded and edited versions of presentations at the 2014 International Herder Conference which took place at Purdue University.

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