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5 - Language and world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2011

Sonia Sikka
Affiliation:
University of Ottawa
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Summary

Although there is at times a racial component in Herder's understanding of the character of peoples, by far the greater part of that character is, for Herder, acquired through culture rather than inherited through biology. Language, as many scholars have noted, appears to be the most crucial determinant of cultural identity within Herder's analysis. It both expresses and shapes the perspective of a people, articulating a specific form of human consciousness, passed on from one generation to the next. Because Herder proposes that there is an intimate relation between language and thought, moreover, he is often credited with having invented, albeit not ex nihilo, a theory of language sometimes referred to as “linguistic constitutivism.” Against older conceptions of language that construed it as external to thought, a sort of clothing placed on ideas for the purpose of communication, this theory holds that thought is essentially dependent upon language, and that language is creative rather than merely descriptive. In his Fragments on Recent German Literature, Herder writes that language is “more than a tool,” for “words and ideas are intimately connected” (Fragments, 177). And in On the Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, he says of the human inventor of language: “In naming everything, and ordering it in relation to himself and his sensitivity, he becomes the imitator of divinity, the second creator, thus also poiesis, a poet” (Hebrew Poetry, 963).

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Chapter
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Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference
Enlightened Relativism
, pp. 160 - 191
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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  • Language and world
  • Sonia Sikka, University of Ottawa
  • Book: Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference
  • Online publication: 03 May 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511783012.007
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  • Language and world
  • Sonia Sikka, University of Ottawa
  • Book: Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference
  • Online publication: 03 May 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511783012.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

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.

  • Language and world
  • Sonia Sikka, University of Ottawa
  • Book: Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference
  • Online publication: 03 May 2011
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511783012.007
Available formats
×