ABSTRACT

In the 1760s, Herder sets out a program for replacing metaphysical inquiry into the nature of thought with an anthropological account of the nature of thought. To understand the novelty and significance of Herder’s project, Gaukroger places Herder’s philosophical anthropology in the context of his contemporaries, Diderot, Hume and Baumgarten.

SPEAKER PROFILE

Stephen Gaukroger is a British philosopher and intellectual historian. He is Professor of History of Philosophy and History of Science at the University of Sydney, where he has been since 1981. He recently also became a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen.

He completed his BA at the University of London, and his PhD is from the University of Cambridge.

His most recent publications include The Collapse of Mechinism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680-1760 (2011), and The Emergence of a Scientific Culture: Science and the Shaping of Modernity 1210-1685 (2006).

Read more about Stephen Gaukroger.

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