Anthropological turn in the philosophy of the Enlightenment – Johann Gottfried Herder

Abstract

The article critically examines a description of the genesis of the philosophical anthropology proposed by Odo Marquard. The German philosopher describes a combination of ideological conditions which in the Age of the Enlightenment led to the emergence of a unique way of practicing philosophy as anthropology. In his analyzes, however, he omits Herder’s work. The arguments included in the first section of the article are aimed at proving the inadequacy of such an interpretation. In the other sections of the text, I reconstruct the most important assumptions of Herder’s program of transforming philosophy into anthropology. These analyzes also provide arguments that are polemical to Marquard’s interpretation.