Herder’s Ideas for a Philosophy of Human History (1784-1791), or: the Anthropological De-struction of “Africa”

Authors

  • Amadou Oury Ba

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/konturen.11.0.4796

Abstract

In his work Ideas for a Philosophy of Human History (1784-1791), the preacher and philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder deals critically with the philosophy of Enlightenment, in which he sees the seed of a racial and cultural classification that considers peoples outside Europe as inferior. This centrally included Africa and its inhabitants as represented by German philosophers. Such a way of imagining Africa, widely shared amongst thinkers of the Enlightenment, echoes still today in various representations in the Western media, and could even serve as an explanation of the current migration drama in the Mediterranean. Herder, who was well informed of these representations in his own day, attempted, in Ideas, to deconstruct the then prevalent image of Africa and its peoples, and thereby entered into an intellectual dispute with his philosophical contemporaries, whose position was to reaffirm the supremacy of European culture and soe justify slavery and colonialism. This paper first focuses on Herder’s context, then explains his positions and his work, and shows how his attempt ended in a de-construction of the «Africa» of the Enlightenment.

Author Biography

Amadou Oury Ba

Amadou Oury BA received his PhD in German from the University of Mannheim in 2005, and his Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Speyer in 2006. Since 2007, he has lectured at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar. He has been Visiting Professor at the German Institute of the University of Tübingen and a member of different research groups such as “Wertewelten” and “Literary Cultures of the Global South.”  He has published many works in various fields within German studies. His research field embraces literary theory in general, including topics such as interculturality, intermediality, migration and postcolonialism, and also German literature and culture from the 16th century up to today.

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Published

2020-12-09

How to Cite

Ba, A. O. (2020). Herder’s Ideas for a Philosophy of Human History (1784-1791), or: the Anthropological De-struction of “Africa”. Konturen, 11, 11–28. https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/konturen.11.0.4796