Abstract

Broadly speaking, naturalism can be described as a philosophical position or set of positions stating that nature is all there is and/or that philosophy, instead of relying on supernatural entities like God, can borrow all its explanatory tools from the sciences. It may seem surprising to search for its early representatives in a Protestant Enlightenment theologian such as Johann Gottfried Herder. But Rachel Zuckert deploys an impressive set of arguments to state her case and explain the premises of Herder's naturalism and its philosophical fruitfulness for his aesthetics.The book, in two parts, contains seven chapters. Part 1 is a systematic reconstruction of the theoretical claims of Herder's aesthetics. Part 2...