Abstract
Johann Gottfried Herder was an important philosopher of history. He was also a student of Immanuel Kant, whose views on history are less well -known, but were developed - as were Herder’s - in the course of sometimes acrimonious exchanges between the two philosophers. Most treatments of this relationship emphasize the differences and points of controversy between Kant and Herder. This chapterpaper argues that we understand Herder better if we view his philosophy of history as a creative development of Enlightenment ideas, rather than as a fundamental critique of them. His rejection of the received eighteenth- century philosophy of history is not a form of relativism, but is better viewed as a radical extension of Enlightenment principles than as a repudiation of them. Herder and Kant also share an Enlightenment faith in historical progress. Robert Adams’ conception of “moral faith” is used to expound and defend the rationality of the Enlightenment position of Kant and Herder.