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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2014
This essay revises customary interpretations of Johann Gottfried Herder that stress the non-political or anarchical nature of his philosophy and his opposition to Enlightenment thought. Approaching his politics through the idea of Bildung, it argues that Herder first elaborated on this seminal concept in a series of early texts concerned with the reform of Russia. It analyses Herder's writings on Russia in the context of wider Enlightenment debates about the reform of the empire, and shows that Bildung was employed as a means to mediate between contrasting models of political action put forward by contemporaries such as Voltaire and Denis Diderot. An outline of the subsequent development of Bildung in his anthropological works reinforces the political intention behind the concept, and situates Herder's political thought firmly within late eighteenth-century controversies.
I would like to thank the editors and anonymous referees for their insightful comments. This article has also immensely benefited from the advice and feedback of Richard Bourke, Tim Hochstrasser and Sankar Muthu.
1 Haym, Rudolf, Herder, 2nd edn, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1954), 2Google Scholar: 507.
2 See Meinecke, Friedrich, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat: Studien zur Genesis des deutschen Nationalstaates, 3rd edn (Munich, 1915)Google Scholar, esp. 29–33; Berlin, Isaiah, “Herder and the Enlightenment”, in Wasserman, Earl R., ed., Aspects of the Eighteenth Century (Baltimore, 1965), 47–105Google Scholar.
3 Influential interpretations that stress Herder's Staatsfeindlichkeit include Haym, Herder, 2: 280–83; Meinecke, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat, 29–33; Ergang, Robert Reinhold, Herder and the Foundations of German Nationalism, (New York, 1931)Google Scholar, chap. 8; Berlin “Herder and the Enlightenment”, 57–78.
4 Berlin, “Herder and the Enlightenment”, 95.
5 See, for instance, the debate between Robert E. Norton and Steven Lestition that erupted recently: Norton, Robert E., “The Myth of the Counter-Enlightenment”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 68/4 (2007), 635–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lestition, Steven, “Countering, Transposing, or Negating the Enlightenment? A Response to Robert Norton”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 68/4 (2007), 659–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Zammito, John H., Menges, Karl and Menze, Ernest A., “Johann Gottfried Herder Revisited: The Revolution in Scholarship in the Last Quarter Century”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 71/4 (2010), 661–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pross, Wolfgang, “Naturalism, Anthropology, and Culture”, in Goldie, Mark and Wokler, Robert, eds., The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge, 2006), 218–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 The most comprehensive exposition of Herder's political thought remains Barnard's, Frederick M.Herder's Social and Political Thought: From Enlightenment to Nationalism (Oxford: 1965)Google Scholar. However, since then several studies have been published that throw new light on different aspects of Herder's politics. See, for instance, Dreitzel, Hans, “Herders politische Konzepte”, in Sauder, Gerhard, ed., Johann Gottfried Herder: 1744–1803 (Hamburg, 1987), 267–98Google Scholar; Barnard, Frederick M., Self-Direction and Political Legitimacy: Rousseau and Herder (Oxford, 1988)Google Scholar; Beiser, Frederick C., Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism (Cambridge, MA, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, chap. 8; La Vopa, Anthony J., “Herder's Publikum: Language, Print and Sociability in Eighteenth-Century Germany”, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 29/1 (1995), 5–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Koepke, Wulf, “Der Staat—die störende und unvermeidliche Maschine”, in Otto, Regine, ed., Nationen und Kulturen (Würzburg, 1996), 227–38Google Scholar; Redekop, Benjamin W., Enlightenment and Community: Lessing, Abbt, Herder, and the Quest for a German Public (Montreal, 2000)Google Scholar, chap. 4; Muthu, Sankar, Enlightenment against Empire (Princeton, 2003)Google Scholar, chap. 6; Eggel, Dominic, Liebich, Andre and Mancini-Griffoli, Deborah, “Was Herder a Nationalist?”, Review of Politics, 69 (2007), 48–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 Only a few studies that analyse the political content of Herder's Russian writings exist; see Kurt Bittner, “Die Beurteilung der russischen Politik im 18. Jahrhundert durch Gottfried Herder, Johann”, in Keyser, Erich, ed., Im Geiste Herders (Kitzingen am Main, 1953), 30–72Google Scholar; Stavenhagen, Kurt, “Herders Geschichtsphilosophie und Geschichtsprophetie”, Zeitschrift für Ostforschung, 1/1 (1952), 16–43Google Scholar; Keller, Mechthild, “‘Politische Seeträume’: Herder und Russland”, in Keller, Mechthild, ed., Russen und Russland aus deutscher Sicht: 18. Jahrhundert: Aufklärung (Munich, 1987), 357–95Google Scholar.
8 Herder, Johann Gottfried, Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769, in Herder, Werke, ed. Pross, Wolfgang, 3 vols. (Munich, 1984–2002), 1: 355–465Google Scholar.
9 These are: Herder, Gedanken bei Lesung Montesquieus, in ibid., 1: 468–73; Herder, Sammlung von Gedanken und Beispielen fremder Schriftsteller über die Bildung der Völker, in Herder, Sämmtliche Werke, ed. Ludwig B. Suphan, 33 vols. (Berlin, 1877–99), 4: 469–78; Herder, Über die Bildung der Völker, in ibid., 32: 231–4.
10 For general overviews see Wilberger, Carolyn H., Peter the Great: An Eighteenth-Century Hero of Our Times?, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, vol. 96 (Oxford, 1972), 9–127Google Scholar; and Wolff, Larry, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, CA, 1994)Google Scholar.
11 Voltaire, Histoire de l'empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand, in Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, ed. Theodore Besterman et al., 141 vols. (Oxford, 1968–), vols. 46–7.
12 Ibid., 46: 509–10.
13 Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV in Voltaire, Œuvres historiques, ed. René Pomeau (Paris, 1957), 616–20.
14 Voltaire, Pierre le Grand et J.-J. Rousseau in Voltaire, Œuvres complètes, ed. L. E. D. Molland, 54 vols. (Paris, 1877–1885), 20: 218–19.
15 Voltaire, Histoire de l'empire de Russie, 46: 552–60.
16 See, for instance, Voltaire's account of Peter's two travels to Europe in ibid., 46: 580–98 and 47: 790–809.
17 Herder, Über den Fleiß in mehreren gelehrten Sprachen, in Sämmtliche Werke, 1: 5.
18 Voltaire, Histoire de l'empire de Russie, 47: 808–9.
19 Herder, Journal, 366–7: “Leichter nachzuahmen, zu arripieren ist keine Nation, als sie . . . So ists; auf Reisen welche Nation nachahmender? in den Sitten und der französischen Sprache, welche leichter? . . . aber alles nur bis auf einen gewissen Grad. Ich sehe in dieser Nachahmungsbegierde, in dieser kindischen Neuerungssucht nichts als gute Anlage einer Nation, die sich bildet”. The translation is from Barnard, Frederick M., J. G. Herder on Social and Political Culture, (Cambridge, 1969), 87Google Scholar. Unless otherwise indicated all subsequent translations are mine.
20 Herder, Über den Fleiß in mehreren gelehrten Sprachen, 1: 5–6.
21 For an overview see Wilberger, Carolyn H., “Voltaire's Russia: Window on the East” in Besterman, Theodore, ed., Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976), CLXIVGoogle Scholar, chaps. 7–8.
22 There exist two pieces of text on Russia in the third edition of the Histoire des deux Indes, which have been attributed to Diderot by Michèle Duchet: see Raynal, Guillaume-Thomas, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes, 3rd edn, 10 vols. (Neuchâtel and Geneva, 1783), 3Google Scholar: bk 5, 46–54, and 9: bk 19, 52–8; and Duchet, Michèle, Diderot et l'histoire des deux Indes: ou l'écriture fragmentaire (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar. In addition, there already exists a passage on Russia in the first edition which has been attributed to Diderot by Gianluigi Goggi: see Raynal, Guillaume-Thomas, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des européens dans les deux Indes, 1st edn, 6 vols. (Amsterdam, 1770)Google Scholar, 2: bk 5, 204–5; and Goggi, Gianluigi, “Diderot et la Russie: quelques remarques sur une page de la première édition de l'histoire des deux Indes”, in Auroux, Sylvainet al., eds., L’Encyclopédie, Diderot, l'esthétique (Paris, 1991)Google Scholar, 100–2.
23 Diderot, Mélanges philosophiques, historiques, etc. pour Catherine II, in Diderot, Œuvres, ed. Laurent Versini, 5 vols. (Paris, 1994–7), 3: 196–407; Diderot, Observations sur le Nakaz, in ibid., 3: 502–78.
24 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 1st edn, 2: bk 5, 205: “Allemands, Anglois, François”; “étrangers dans leur patrie”.
25 Ibid., 3: bk 5, 51–2.
26 For similar interpretations of Diderot's project pursued in the Histoire des deux Indes, see Mason, John Hope, “Materialism and History: Diderot and the Histoire des deux Indes”, European Review of History, 2 (1996), 151–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Duchet, Michèle, Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des lumières (Paris, 1971), 367–90Google Scholar.
27 Diderot expressed this vision of nature most prominently in his La rêve de d’Alembert in Œuvres, 1: 614. In the Histoire des deux Indes textual evidence of such a view of nature informing the historical process abounds; see Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 3rd edn, 9: bk 19, 278 and 4: bk 7, 63. For the attribution of these and all subsequently used passages from the Histoire des deux Indes to Diderot see Duchet, Diderot et l'histoire des deux Indes.
28 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 3rd edn, 4: bk 7, 24–8, and 9: bk 19, 40–42.
29 Diderot, Mélanges pour Catherine II, in Œuvres, 3: 245.
30 See, especially, Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 3rd edn, 3: bk 5, 51–2. See also Dulac, Georges, “Diderot et la ‘civilisation’ de la Russie”, in Chouillet, Anne-Marie, ed., Colloque international Diderot (1713–1784) (Paris, 1985), 161–8Google Scholar.
31 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 3rd edn, 3: bk 5, 51–2.
32 Ibid., 48–52; Diderot, Observations sur le Nakaz, 516–7; Diderot, Mélanges pour Catherine II, 207–8.
33 Herder, Adrastea, in Sämmtliche Werke, 23–4, 23: 443–4: “Eben wie die Natur bei jedem Gewächs seine, und eben damit ihre Zeit hält . . . sollten die Menschen nicht auch bei dem feinsten Werk, das sie zu treiben haben . . . sollten sie nicht auch mit jedem Gewächs seine Zeit halten? D.i. bei keinem Frucht vor der Blüthe, bei keinem Blüthe im Keim fodern? // Doch aber, wo es die Natur des Gewächses will, die Blüthe durch Ein befruchtendes Donnerwetter hervortreiben? Ich dachte eben an Peter den Großen, der seine Nation auf Einmal, und zwar mit Gewalt in Künsten blühend machte.” Emphasis in the original.
34 Herder, Journal, 412, 418, 426–7.
35 Herder, Adrastea, 23: 447–9.
36 Herder, Journal, 367.
37 Herder, Adrastea, 23: 451.
38 Keller has noted that Herder's account of Peter I engages with Voltaire and Diderot. According to Keller, this engagement indicates the extent to which the young Herder shared with Voltaire and Diderot a belief in the efficacy of reform from above. However, her analysis does not capture the differences between Voltaire's and Diderot's conception of the enlightened ruler of Russia, nor, indeed, Herder's attempt to mediate between the two. See Keller, “Politische Seeträume”, 365–7.
39 For an account of the biographical context see Haym, Herder, 1: 337–80.
40 Herder, Journal, 373–7, 380–409.
41 See ibid., 410–12. These two options are intimately related in Herder's mind. Indeed, in the Journal he moves effortlessly from contemplating the reform of the Domschule in Riga, to ideas about the socio-economic and political development of Livonia, to finally arrive at preliminary sketches for the civilization of the Russian Empire as a whole. While it would be fascinating to study closely how Herder conceptualizes the relationship between the reform of a town, a province and an empire, and how he views the respective roles of the educator, the clergyman, the writer and the political adviser in the process of reform, such a study is beyond the scope of this essay. For accounts that touch on the interplay of the reform of Riga, Livonia and Russia in the Journal see Bittner, “Die Beurteilung der russischen Politik”, esp. 41–58; and Dreitzel, “Herders politische Konzepte”, 267–9.
42 Herder, Journal, 374: “nicht schriftlich, nicht durch Federkriege, sondern lebendig, durch Bildung”.
43 Herder, Sammlung von Gedanken, 4: 478: “Zeiten der Bildung, Wege der Bildung, Mittel [und] Folgen”.
44 See Geuss, Raymond, Morality, Culture, and History: Essays on German Philosophy (Cambridge, 1999), 29–50Google Scholar; and Vierhaus, Rudolf, “Bildung”, in Bruner, Otto, Conze, Werner and Koselleck, Reinhart, eds., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, 8 vols. (Stuttgart, 1972–1997)Google Scholar, 1: 508–51.
45 Vierhaus, “Bildung”, 515–17.
46 Herder, Sammlung von Gedanken, 4: 473–4: “Der Fluß der Zeit, der Fortgang der Regierung bilden weiter, können aber auch zurückbilden . . . Gegen die Einwendungen derer, die da sagen, alles bilde sich von selbst. Ja aber auch zurück. Hier muß ein Monarch den Fluß leiten.”
47 Ibid., 4: 473.
48 Ibid., 4: 477: “Bildung einer Nation durch sich”; “Bildung einer Nation nach andern”.
49 Ibid., 4: 472.
50 Voltaire, Histoire de l'empire de Russie, 47: 931.
51 Raynal, Histoire des deux Indes, 3rd edn, 3: bk 5, 51.
52 Herder, Sammlung von Gedanken, 4: 474: “Peters Akademie hat noch keinen Nationalgeist: sie lebt noch nicht für, durch und in der Nation. Sie dient niedrig dem Hof, und schläft. Aber eine zu schaffen, aus und für die Nation, aus ihrem Geist und der ihn fortleite.” Emphasis in the original.
53 Herder, Journal, 427.
54 Herder, Gedanken bei Lesung Montesquieus, in Werke, 1: 468–73, 470. “Metaphysik für ein totes Gesetzbuch . . . Metaphysik zur Bildung der Völker ists nicht.”
55 Herder, Journal, 412.
56 See, for instance, ibid., 1: 412–3, 422–4.
57 Ibid., 1: 411: “Worinn die wahre Cultur bestehe? nicht bloß im Gesetze geben, sondern Sitten bilden . . . Vortrefflichkeit guter Anordnung, die über Gesetze und Hofbeispiele geht . . . Daß das Exempel des Hofes nur an Hofe gelte, und da auch große Vorteile aber auch Nachteile habe. Daß viele einzelne Exempel in einzelnen Provinzen mehr tun; und noch mehr einzelne Beispiele in einzelnen Familien.” Emphasis in the original; the translation is from Barnard, Herder on Social and Political Culture, 92.
58 See, for instance, Irmscher, Hans Dietrich, “Grundfrage der Geschichtsphilosophie Herders bis 1774”, in Poschmann, Brigitte, ed., Bückeburger Gespräche über Johann Gottfried Herder 1983 (Rinteln, 1984), 28–32Google Scholar; Zammito, John H., Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology (Chicago, 2001)Google Scholar, chap. 8; and Wolfgang Pross, “Nachwort” in Werke, 2: 1128–216.
59 Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, in Werke, 2: 251–399, 257–60, 346–7, 354–7; Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, in ibid., 3, 3/1: bk 5, 158–62.
60 Herder, Ideen, bk 5, 154–8, bk 7, 245–53. Herder's teleological conception of forces is influenced by Leibniz; see Nisbet, Hugh Barr, “Herders anthropologische Anschauungen in den ‘Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit’”, in Barkhoff, Jürgen, ed., Anthropologie und Literatur um 1800 (Munich, 1992), 1–23, 8–9Google Scholar.
61 Herder, Ideen, bk 15, 612. On Herder's reception of Spinoza see also Adler, Emil, “Pantheismus-Humanität-Promethie: Ein Beitrag zur Humanitätsphilosophie Herders”, in Gottfired Maltusch, Johann, ed., Bückeburger Gespräche über Johann Gottfried Herder: 1971 (Bückeburg, 1973), 77–80Google Scholar. The substantive differences between Diderot and Herder's conceptions of God/nature indicate that Spinoza's philosophy was received in more diverse ways in the second half of the eighteenth century than Jonathan Israel admits. For Israel's most recent statement about the unitary character of Enlightenment Spinozism see Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights (Oxford, 2011), 11.
62 See Reill, Peter Hanns, “Science and the Science of History in the Spätaufklärung”, in Bödeker, Hans Erich, ed., Aufklärung und Geschichte (Göttingen, 1986), 430–51, 439–40Google Scholar.
63 Herder, Ideen, bk 5, 154; Herder, Übers Erkennen und Empfinden in der Menschlichen Seele, in Sämmtliche Werke, 8: 241–2.
64 Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 270–74, 320–22; Ideen, bk 4, 132–6.
65 Herder, Ideen, bk 3, 91–6; Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 270.
66 Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 276–87.
67 For an account of the intellectual context of Herder's Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache see Aarsleff, Hans, “The Tradition of Condillac: The Problem of the Origin of Language in the Eighteenth Century and the Debate in the Berlin Academy before Herder”, in Hymes, Dell, ed., Studies in the History of Linguistics: Traditions and Paradigms (Bloomington, 1974), 101–40Google Scholar.
68 Herder, Übers Erkennen und Empfinden, 8: 252: “Wir leben immer in einer Welt, die wir uns selbst bilden.” See also Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 271; and Herder, Ideen, bk 4, 135. Avi Lifschilz shows that the question of the relation between natural and cultural as well as necessary and contingent factors in the development of language is constitutive of eighteenth-century linguistic theories. Herder's solution to the problem is based on the contention that while human beings have an innate capacity for language and necessarily need to develop it in order to survive in a hostile natural environment, the actualization of this capacity is always a free and contingent process. See Lifschilz, Avi, “The Enlightenment Revival of the Epicurean History of Language and Civilisation”, in Leddy, Neven and Lifschitz, Avi, eds., Epicurus in the Enlightenment (Oxford, 2009), 207–22Google Scholar.
69 Herder, Ideen, bk 4, 131–5, bk 5, 169–70.
70 Ibid., bk 4, 150–51, bk 8, 298–305.
71 Ibid., bk 7, 238–45, bk 8, 259–84.
72 See, especially, Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 334–47; see also Herder, Ideen, bk 8, 284–97.
73 Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 348–52; Herder, Ideen, bk 9, 306–14.
74 Herder, Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität, in Sämmtliche Werke, 17: 138. See also Herder, Ideen, bk 4, 142–52, bk 15, 580–85. For the relationship of the concept of Humanität to Herder's pantheism and naturalism see Bollacher, Martin, “‘Natur’ und ‘Vernunft’ in Herders Entwurf einer Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit”, in Sauder, Gerhard, ed., Johann Gottfried Herder: 1744–1803 (Hamburg, 1987), 119–24Google Scholar.
75 Herder, Ideen, bk 15, 608; see also Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 336, 341–2, 353–4.
76 Herder, Ideen, bk 4, 135.
77 See also Pross, Wolfgang, “Herder und die moderne Geschichtswissenschaft”, Germanisch–Romanische Monatsschrift, 57/1 (2007), 39–43Google Scholar.
78 On the idea that Herder's anthropology is influenced by an aesthetic theory of harmony see Reill, Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment (Berkeley, CA, 2005), 189–90Google Scholar.
79 Herder, Ideen, bk 12, 469–70, bk 15, 582–3.
80 Ibid., bk 8, 302–3.
81 Herder, Ideen, bk 9, 327–8. See also Herder's Auszug aus einem Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder alter Völker, where he favourably compares the strength, immediacy and spontaneity of Greek and old Nordic poetry to the weakness, abstractness and artificiality of modern European literature; see Herder, Sämmtliche Werke, 5: 164–83.
82 Rousseau, Jean-Jeacques, Discours sur l'origine et les fondemens de l'inégalité parmi les hommes, in Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, ed. Gagnebin, Bernard and Raymond, Marcel, 5 vols. (Paris, 1959), 3: 109–223Google Scholar, esp. 164–6.
83 Herder, Abhandlung vom Ursprung der Sprache, 2: 319–20, 332. See also Herder, Vom Einfluß der Regierung auf die Wissenschaften und der Wissenschaften auf die Regierung, in Sämmtliche Werke, 9: 307–408, 313–19; and Ideen, bk 8, 285–97.
84 Herder, Ideen, bk 8, 284–7. See also Herder, Haben wir noch jetzt das Publikum und Vaterland der Alten?, in Sämmtliche Werke, 1: 24–6; and Herder, Adrastea, 24: 103–19.
85 See Kant, Immanuel, Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht, in Kant, Werke in sechs Bänden, ed. Weischedel, Wilhelm, 6 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1964)Google Scholar, 6: 307–408, 37.
86 On Herder's notion of sociability in contrast to Hobbes's and Kant's see also Hont, Istvan, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2005)Google Scholar, 503–7.
87 See Kant, Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte, 40.
88 Herder, Ideen, bk 9, 336–7: “Ein zwar leichter, aber böser Grundsatz wäre es zur Philosophie der Menschen-Geschichte: ‘Der Mensch sei ein Tier das einen Herren nötig habe und von diesem Herren oder von einer Verbindung derselben das Glück seiner Endbestimmung erwarte.’ . . . Die Natur nämlich hat unserm Geschlecht keinen Herren bezeichnet . . . So wie es nun ein schlechter Vater ist, der sein Kind erziehet, damit es, Lebenslang unmündig, Lebenslang eines Erziehers bedörfe . . . so mache man die Anwendung auf die Erzieher des Menschengeschlechts, die Väter des Vaterlandes und ihre Erzognen.” For Kant's reply to this attack see his review of the second part of the Ideen in Werke in sechs Bänden, 6: 804.
89 Herder, Vom Einfluß der Regierung, 351–2.
90 Ibid., 351–71.
91 Herder discusses the question of censorship with an implicit reference to Rousseau's defence of upholding a ban on theatres in Geneva to protect the republic from corrupting, foreign influences against d’Alembert's advocacy of a Genevan theatre. Although generally an opponent of any restriction of freedom of expression, Herder partly agreed with Rousseau by arguing that foreign influences may have to be suppressed if a given culture is not rooted strongly enough to absorb them; see Herder, Vom Einfluß der Regierung, 357–61. On the debate between d’Alembert and Rousseau see d’Alembert, Jean le Rond, “Genève”, in Diderot, Denis and d’Alembert, Jean le Rond, eds., Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de letters, 17 vols. (Paris, 1751–65), 7: 578–82Google Scholar; and Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Lettre à M. D’Alembert sur son article Genève, ed. Launay, Michel (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar.
92 Berlin, Isaiah, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (Oxford, 1981), 10–13Google Scholar.
93 For a similar argument see also Muthu, Enlightenment against Empire, 210–12.
94 Barnard also argues that Herder makes room for paternal tutelage in certain circumstances. However, endeavouring to stress the quasi-democratic nature of Herder's political thought, he underplays its importance. According to Barnard, tutelage is a necessary and strictly transitional evil: once a nation has been educated to a sufficient level of maturity, any imposition from above will have to wither away and be replaced by spontaneous joint endeavour from below. Whereas it is certainly true that Herder advocated diverging levels of imposition depending on historical conjectures, he did not believe that tutelage would ever come to a complete end. Herder's concept of Bildung, as well as his Russian writings, rather suggests that he considered the relation between top-down and bottom-up, or tutor and pupil, as one of a harmony which needs constant reconfiguration depending on circumstances. See Barnard, Self-Direction and Political Legitimacy, 147–56, 300–5; and Barnard, Herder's Social and Political Thought, 76–83.
