Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
At one time, during the 1760s, Herder had been a student of Kant's, and had greatly admired the views communicated in his lectures of that period. Kant's highly unsympathetic review of the second part of Herder's Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind, published in 1785, however, shows how profound the philosophical differences between these two had become by this point. The nature of happiness, and its place within the “destiny” or “vocation” (Bestimmung) of the human race, forms a central area of dispute emerging from the review. Kant is responding, in particular, to a section of the Ideas entitled: “The happiness (Glückseligkeit) of human beings is everywhere an individual good; consequently, it is everywhere climatic and organic, a child of practice, tradition, and custom” (Ideas, 327). Although he is not mentioned by name, this section clearly contains critical rejoinders, often quite harsh in tone, to aspects of Kant's practical philosophy and philosophy of history, as Herder understands them. Against the idea that happiness requires extrinsic justification, for example, Herder insists that “every living creature takes delight in its life; it does not brood and ask, why is it there? Its existence is to it an end and its end is existence” (Ideas, 330).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.