Johann Gottfried Herder and Judaism, by Emil Adler
The anti-Jewish statements in Herder’s writings brought about publications with nationalistic and racist interpretations of his work, thereby distorting Herder’s image. In “Johann Gottfried Herder and Judaism,” Emil Adler focuses on one such statement found in the book sixteen of Herder’s Ideen Zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man), which takes recourse to the age-old stereotype of the Jews as parasites. By examining Herder’s engagement with the Jewish literature including incorporation of the rabbinical stories in his own works and cordial appraisal of some of the Jewish interpretations of the Song of Solomon, the essay provides the evidence for Herder’s truly friendly relation to the Jewish people, their culture, and literature, to which a large part of Herder’s work was dedicated. By analyzing Herder’s style of writing that reflects his “method of compensation” and “tactics of concealment,” compelled by the Church-dominated political environment, the essay shows that the statement from the Ideen and similar stereotypical anti-Jewish statements do not qualify as arguments. Through a confrontation with the older manuscript version of the quoted statement, the essay reveals the passage to be originally a pro-Jewish text.
Article available through Philosophy Documentation Center, here.
Emil Adler was a professor of German Studies at the University of Warsaw, and an important scholar of the work of Johann Gottfried Herder. He was the author of the monograph Herder und die Deutsche Aufklärung (Europa, 1968); the editor of a Polish edition of Herder’s works, Mysli o filozofii dziejów (Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1962); and the co-editor (with Hans Dietrich Irmscher) of a catalog of Herder’s manuscripts, Der handschriftliche Nachlass Johann Gottfried Herders: Katalog (Harrassowitz, 1979).
Emil Adler, “Johann Gottfried Herder and Judaism,” trans. Timothy Hackett, in “Philosophy and Race,” ed. Alexis Dianda and Robin M. Muller, special issue, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 35:1–2 (2014), pp. 159–79.