Johan G. Herder: perfil intelectual de un ilustrado radical

The intellectual origins of Nationalism and its idea of Culture found an unavoidable reference in Johann G. Herder’s work (1744-1803). Herder put forward an approach to Enlightenment contrary to the official one, critical of the policies of bureaucratic Reformism of Absolutism and Kantian Philosophical Rationalism. Herder’s take on Enlightenment holds a sense of History open to cultural diversity. Language and Culture emerge from Herder’s approach as the codes of a people’s world conceived of in a utopian way, beyond the logic of monarchic and aristocratic power. The nationalist idea of culture developed by the German thinker makes us reconsider, in a critical way, the Romantic origins of Nationalism