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J.G. Herder on Language and the Metaphysics of National Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Russell Arben Fox
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Extract

The study of national communal feeling is often limited by the reluctance many theorists have to consider the manifest, affective meaning which so many discover and embrace through their nations. The writings of Johann Gottfried Herder suggest a way to theorize about that affectivity without treating it as either incidental to the real nature of national communities, or as a threat to the individuals who inhabit them. Herder's approach is based on language, and involves a metaphysical assumption about the aesthetic operation of human thought and collective belonging. Herder's linking of the history and nature of nation-building with a vision of linguistic revelation through one's Volk presents a fairly original take on the question of nationality, one which approaches communal affections with a moral (and ultimately theological) seriousness, but is also flexible enough to recognize (and even anticipate) contemporary critiques of metaphysics which have complicated our traditional assumptions about national identity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , Spring 2003 , pp. 237 - 262
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2003

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References

1 Isaiah Berlin's studies of Herder were very influential here; in publications like “Herder and the Enlightenment” (in Berlin, Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas [New York: Viking Press, 1976], pp. 145–216Google Scholar), he explained the role Herder's romantic appreciation of diverse histories and folkways played in the rise of cultural pluralism as a challenge to Enlightenment doctrines. Since then, Herder's contributions to political and social matters have been examined by Beiser, Frederick (in Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1790–1800 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992], pp. 189–221)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Taylor, Charles (in “The Politics of Recognition,” in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition, ed, Gutmann, Amy [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994], pp. 25–73)Google Scholar, and many others. The study of Herder's political ideas in English-language scholarship has gone beyond Berlin's original work, which is appropriate; for all his insights, Berlin never examined the ontological roots of Herder's appreciation of history and the Volk, and hence left many of Herder's religious and philosophical writings unexplored. Berlin's pluralist reading of Herder has been productively criticized of late (see Linker, Damon, “The Reluctant Pluralism of J.G. Herder,” Review of Politics 62 [Spring 2000]: 268 n.2 and passim)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but much work remains to be done.

2 See Kymlicka, , Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 165 and passimGoogle Scholar; “From Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism to Liberal Nationalism,” in Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 210.Google Scholar

3 See Kymlicka, , “Liberal Culturalism: An Emerging Consensus?” in Politics in the Vernacular, pp. 39–42 and passimGoogle Scholar. Some theorists who are basically sympathetic Kymlicka's project include Avishai Margalit, David Miller, Joseph Raz, Jeff Spinner and Yael Tamir. See Margalit, and Raz, , “National Self-Determination,” Journal of Philosophy 87 (1990): 439–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miller, , On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar—but also see Miller, , “Communitarianism: Left, Right and Centre,” in Citizenship and National Identity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), pp. 97–109Google Scholar; Raz, , “Multiculturalism: A Liberal Perspective,” Dissent, Winter 1994, pp. 67–79Google Scholar; Spinner, , The Boundaries of Citizenship (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), esp. chap. 4Google Scholar; and Tamir, , Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

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7 See White, Stephen K., Sustaining Affirmation: The Strengths of Weak Ontology in Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. 10.Google Scholar White is discussing here what he calls “weak ontological reflection,” not anything associated with human attachments per se. But his exploration of this topic is helpful in understanding the aesthetic-affective dimension; and moreover, as White notes, the issues raised by certain varieties of communitarianism (in particular Taylor's) have been an important source for recent challenges to traditional ontological assumptions regarding the preference-motivated self. See Ibid., p. 5, and chap. 3.

8. I acknowledge that I am dismissing here without argument the claim that the post-September 11th patriotism expressed by the great majority of Americans, far from revealing a spontaneous sense of awareness and attachment, in fact reflected nothing more than media-induced (and politically manipulated) groupthink. I find such claims completely unpersuasive, not to mention condescending.

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12 This is how Anthony D. Smith presents the “modernist” claim about nationality; see Smith, , “The Origins of Nations,” in Becoming National, pp. 106, 109 and passimGoogle Scholar. Influential defenses of the modernist position include Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1991)Google Scholar, Hobsbawm, E. J., Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, and Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).Google Scholar

13 See Hegel, , Philosophy of Right, ed. Knox, T. M. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), “Preface,” pp. 10–11, and §75 n.47, §268–270 n.162.Google Scholar

14 See, for example, chap. 2 of the standard sociolinguistic text, Edwards's, JohnLanguage, Society and Identity (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1985)Google Scholar. It is almost impossible to avoid reports on nationalist movements and their focus on language; when I was writing the first draft of this essay, two examples appeared on the same day on the front pages of major American newspapers: Daley, Suzanne, “In Europe, Some Fear National Languages are Endangered,” The New York Times, A1Google Scholar, and Glasser, Susan B., “In Russian Republic, ABCs Are Test of Power,” The Washington Post, Al, both on 16 April 2001.Google Scholar

15 Spinner, , The Boundaries of Citizenship, p. 152Google Scholar; Spinner is here criticizing the claims of Charles Taylor; see Taylor, , “The Politics of Recognition,” p. 59.Google Scholar

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19 Taylor discusses this issue in a philosophical vein in “Reply and Rearticulation,” pp. 236–40Google Scholar, which is a response to Vincent Descombes's discussion of language in “Is There an Objective Spirit?” in Philosophy in an Age of Pluralism, pp. 96–118Google Scholar; Taylor considers the matter further in “Language and Society,” in Communicative Action: Essays on Jürgen Habermas's “The Theory of Communicative Action,“ ed. Honneth, Axel and Joas, Hans (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991)Google Scholar. For support from cognitive linguistics for this position, see Turner, Mark, The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

20. I think here in particular of Hastings, Adrian, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 On the former, see the aforementioned work of Isaiah Berlin; on the latter, consider Zammito, John H., Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), esp. chaps. 4 and 8.Google Scholar

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27 Herder described his concept of Besonnenheit as “the whole disposition of human nature” and “the accommodation of all human forces in this central, fated direction” (Abhandlung Über den Ursprung der Sprache [Treatise on the Origin of Language], in Werke in zehn Bänden, vol. 1, ed. Gaier, Ulrich [Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985], pp. 719, 720Google Scholar, hereafter cited as “Abhandlung” / Forster, , pp. 84, 85).Google Scholar

28 Brief zu Beförderung, pp. 577–578Google Scholar / Against Pure Reason: Writings on Religion, Language, and History, ed. and trans. Bunge, Marcia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 146Google Scholar, hereafter cited as “Bunge.”

29 Abhandlung, p. 722Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 87.Google Scholar

30 Abhandlung, p. 723Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 88.Google Scholar

31 Forster, , “Herder's Philosophy of Language,“ p. 340.Google Scholar

32 Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit [Ideas for a Philosophy the History of Humankind], in Werke in zehn Bänden, vol. 6, ed. Bollacher, Martin (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1998), p. 348Google Scholar, hereafter cited as “Ideen zur Philosophie.”

33 Abhandlung, pp. 723–24Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 89 and passim.Google Scholar

34 This does not mean that Herder was a straightforward empiricist in his understanding of language and thought, along the lines of Locke and other British thinkers. On the contrary, from very early on in his career Herder argued that material principles and sensations are not reflected by us, but rather have their locus of connection in us” (see Versuch Über das Sein [Essay on Being], in Werke in zehn Bänden, 1: 20Google Scholar). Forster, linking these two aspects of Herder's philosophy (that that meanings or concepts may be essentially equated with usages of words, and that those usages themselves have a sensate nature), writes that for Herder “the sensations which ground concepts inevitably undergo a transformation as the concepts are acquired [and hence spoken and further acquired and transformed], their final required nature being one that they can only have along with concepts” see Forster, , “Herder's Philosophy of Language,” p. 352 and passim).Google Scholar

35 On the relevance of the sense of “irreducible rightness” to distinguishing human language and its unique “linguistic dimension” from other forms of intraspecies communication, see Taylor, Charles, “The Importance of Herder,” in Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 85–86.Google Scholar

36 Abhandlung, p. 725Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 90Google Scholar; see also Norton, Robert E., Herder's Aesthetics and the European Enlightenment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 115 and passimGoogle Scholar, for a fine consideration of Einverständnis, an important concept which has unfortunately passed mostly uninvestigated in many other studies of Herder.

37 Abhandlung, p. 733Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 97.Google Scholar

38 Abhandlung, p. 740Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 103.Google Scholar

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40 See Wie die Philosophie zum Besten des Volks allgemeiner und nützlicher werden kann [How Philosophy can become more General and Useful for the Good of the People], in: Werke in zehn Bänden, 1: 134Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 29Google Scholar; Vom Erkennen Und Empfinden der; Menschlichen Seek [On the Cognition and Sensation of the Human Soul], in Werke in: zehn Bänden, 4: 331Google Scholar, hereafter cited as “Vom Erkennen” / Forster, , p. 189 and passim.Google Scholar

41 See McGrath, Alister E., In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture (New York: Doubleday, 2001), esp. pp. 253–76 and passimGoogle Scholar; Fletcher, , “The Case for Linguistic Self-Defense,“ pp. 331–32.Google Scholar

42 Ideen zur Philosophie, p. 369Google Scholar / Barnard, , p. 324.Google Scholar

43 Vom Erkennen, p. 358Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 212Google Scholar.It should be noted that this idea plays an important role in filling out Herder's whole philosophy of language, and that in presenting the bond of language as something which sustains and contributes humanity's essential reflexivity or “inner plasticity,” Herder to a degree partially supplants—or better, supplements, without necessarily changing any key arguments—the pure (perhaps almost too psychological) “marking” operation of Besonnenheit which he described in the Treatise. (Vom Erkennen, p. 357Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 211 and passimGoogle Scholar; see also Forster, , “Herder's Philosophy of Language,” p. 340.)Google Scholar

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45 Ideen zur Philosophie, p. 342Google Scholar / Bunge, , p. 53.Google Scholar

46 Auch eine Philosophie, pp. 39–40Google Scholar / Forster, , p. 297.Google Scholar

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48 Spencer, Vicki, “Difference and Unity: Herder's Concept of Volk and its Relevance for Contemporary Multicultural Societies,” in Nationen und Kulturen, ed. Otto, Regine (Wüzrburg: Königstein, 1996), pp. 299–302.Google Scholar

49 Idee zum ersten patriotischen Institut für den Allgemeingeist Deutschlands [Idea the First Patriotic Institute of the German Public Spirit], in Werke in zehn Bänden, volume 9/2, ed. Wisbet, Rainer and Pradel, Klaus (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1997), p. 565.Google Scholar

50 Nettle, Daniel and Romaine, Suzanne, Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 7 and passimGoogle Scholar; Pinker, , The Language Instinct, p. 232.Google Scholar

51 Brief zu Beförderung, p. 276.Google Scholar

52 Über die Fähigkeit zu sprechen und zu hören [On the Ability to Speak and Hear], in Werke in zehn Bänden, 9/2: 707.Google Scholar

53 Spencer, Vicki, “Herder and Nationalism: Reclaiming the Principle of Cultural Respect,” Australian Journal of Politics and History 43 (1997): 6 and passimGoogle Scholar, and “Difference and Unity,” pp. 301–302.Google Scholar

54 See Rodriguez, , “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood,” The American Scholar 50 (Winter 1980/1981): 34 and passim.Google Scholar

55 For an example of this kind of traditionalist claim, see the preface of the facsimile publication of Webster's, NoahFirst Edition of an American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 (San Francisco: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1967), p. 10 and passim.Google Scholar

56 The dynamics (and limits) of a human rights approach to language policy displayed in Kymlicka, , “Human Rights and Enthnocultural Justice,” in Politics the Vernacular, pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

57 Is the multilingual Canadian federation, for instance, a success or not? Certainly Canada has a stable civil society and atleast a certain degree of national affectivity. But has that been achieved because of a truly translingual, felt attachment, because fortuitous historical circumstances have rendered Canada's “binational” federation palatable almost in spite of itself? This is a complex argument, one made more difficult by the (often buried but still very strong) animosities generated by efforts of Pierre Trudeau to force Canada to embrace a single, multilingual identity: see Coulombe, Pierre A., “Citizenship and Official Bilingualism in Canada,” Citizenship in Diverse Societies, ed. Kymlicka, Will and Norman, Wayne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 273–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laforest, Guy, “The True Nature of Sovereignty: Reply to my Critics Concerning Trudeau and the End of the Canadian Dream,” in Canadian Political Philosophy: Contemporary Reflections, ed. Beiner, Ronald and Norman, Wayne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 298–310Google Scholar; and “Pierre Elliot Trudeau: Quebec's Best Friend,” in Trudeau's Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, ed. Cohen, Andrew and Granatstein, J.L. (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 1999), pp. 367–92Google Scholar. Answering these questions also requires research into actual language practice, which is rarely as multilingual as the documents which give nations their legal embodiment seem to imply. For example, it is interesting to note that in Switzerland, which is both multilingual and famously patriotic, communities are overwhelmingly monolingual: “there is no official bilingualism at the local level … living in Switzerland means living entirely in German, in French or in Italian” (Grin, Francois, “Language Policy in Multilingual Switzerland,”Google Scholar cited in Kymlicka, , “From Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism,” p. 213 n.7).Google Scholar

58. I owe this important criticism to anonymous readers for The Review of Politics.

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60 Brief zu Beförderung, p. 698.Google Scholar

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66 See Kovacs, George, “Heidegger in Dialogue with Herder: Crossing the Language of Metaphysics toward Be-ing-historical Language,” Heidegger Studies 17 (2001): 45–63.Google Scholar

67 Ibid., pp. 57–61.

68 Heidegger, , “Language,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. Hofstadter, Albert (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), p. 192Google Scholar, and “Letter on Humanism,” p. 262.Google Scholar

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72 Dallmayr, , The Other Heidegger, p. 103.Google Scholar

73 Von Baumgartens Denkart in seinen Schriften [On the Thought of Baumgarten in His Writings], in Werke in zehn Bänden, 1: 655.Google Scholar

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