Johann Friedrich Herbart facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Johann Friedrich Herbart
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Engraving by Conrad Geyer
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| Born | 4 May 1776 Oldenburg, Duchy of Oldenburg
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| Died | 14 August 1841 (aged 65) Göttingen, Kingdom of Hanover
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| Alma mater | University of Jena |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | German idealism Post-Kantianism |
| Institutions | University of Göttingen University of Königsberg |
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Main interests
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Logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics |
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Notable ideas
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Pluralistic realism Pedagogy as an academic discipline |
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Influences
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Influenced
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Johann Friedrich Herbart (4 May 1776 – 14 August 1841) was a German philosopher and psychologist. He is also known for creating pedagogy as a proper academic subject. Pedagogy is the study of how to teach.
Herbart is remembered among philosophers who came after Kant. He often had very different ideas from another famous philosopher, Hegel, especially about aesthetics (the study of beauty and art). Herbart's ideas about education are known as Herbartianism.
Contents
Life Story
Herbart was born on May 4, 1776, in Oldenburg, Germany. As a child, he was quite delicate due to an accident. His mother taught him at home until he was 12 years old.
He then attended a Gymnasium (a type of high school) for six years. During this time, he became very interested in philosophy and logic. He also studied the work of Immanuel Kant, especially Kant's ideas about how we gain knowledge from our experiences.
Herbart continued his education at the University of Jena. There, he studied philosophy and even disagreed with his teacher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Herbart wrote essays criticizing other philosophers and supported the ideas of German idealism, which was popular at the time.
After three years at Jena, Herbart became a tutor for the children of Herr von Steiger, the Governor of Interlaken in Switzerland. This tutoring job made him very interested in improving education. While in Switzerland, he met Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, a famous Swiss educator who was also working on school reforms.
Herbart left his tutoring job and spent three years studying Greek and mathematics at the University of Bremen. Then, from 1801 to 1809, he attended the University of Göttingen. He earned his doctoral degree and became a privat-docent (a private lecturer) for his work in education.
Around 1805, he gave his first philosophy lectures at Göttingen. In 1809, he moved to the University of Königsberg to take over the philosophy position that Immanuel Kant once held. At Königsberg, Herbart also started and ran a special school for teachers (a seminary of pedagogy) until 1833. He then returned to Göttingen and remained a professor of philosophy there until he died. Herbart gave a lecture feeling perfectly well, but then unexpectedly died two days later from a stroke. He is buried in Albanifriedhof Cemetery in Göttingen.
Herbart was very focused on his studies. People said he "barely saw the world outside his study and the classrooms." His world was "the world of books and only books." Despite his intense studying, he met an 18-year-old English girl named Mary Drake one night while playing charades. He got to know her and asked her to marry him. They had a happy life, with Mary supporting all of her husband's work in education and psychology.
Herbart's Philosophy
Herbart believed that philosophy starts by thinking deeply about our everyday ideas. Philosophy then helps us make these ideas clearer. He divided philosophy into three main parts: Logic, metaphysics, and aesthetics.
Logic and Thinking
Herbart didn't write much about logic. He strongly believed that logic was about the rules of thinking, not about what is real. He mostly agreed with other philosophers like Fries and Krug on this point.
What is Reality?
Herbart's ideas about metaphysics (the study of what is real) are quite unique. He started by questioning what we truly know, similar to philosophers like Locke and Kant. He noticed that some of our ideas about reality seem to have contradictions. For example, how can one thing have many different qualities at the same time?
Herbart believed that reality is made up of many simple, unchanging things he called reals. These "reals" are like tiny, basic building blocks of everything. They are:
- Positive: They are something, not nothing.
- Simple: They cannot be broken down into smaller parts.
- Without Quantity: They don't have size or amount.
- Many: There can be many different "reals."
This idea is called pluralistic realism.
When we see a thing with many qualities (like a red, round, hard apple), Herbart said that the apple isn't one simple "real" with many qualities. Instead, it's a collection of many different "reals" that are somehow connected. Each "real" keeps its own simple quality. What we see as qualities (like "red" or "round") are actually how these "reals" interact with each other.
Herbart also thought about how things change. He believed that "reals" themselves don't change. When something appears to change (like an apple turning from green to red), it's not because the "reals" inside the apple changed. Instead, it's because the connections between different "reals" have changed.
When two "reals" come together, they try to affect each other. But each "real" also tries to stay exactly as it is. This struggle to preserve themselves is what creates what we observe as reality.
Education Principles
Herbart believed that education was very important for a person's growth and their role in society. He thought that everyone is born with special abilities, but these abilities need to be developed through education. This education should follow the "accumulated values of civilization." He felt that formal, strong education was key for developing good character and intelligence.
Herbart identified five main ideas for a person's growth:
- Inner Freedom: Being able to control your own will and actions.
- Perfection: Making your different desires work well together.
- Benevolence: Being kind and thinking about others.
- Justice: Acting fairly, especially when there's a conflict.
- Equity or Recompense: Giving what is due for good or bad actions.
Herbart thought that abilities are not just something you are born with. They can be taught and developed. To help students learn and become responsible citizens, Herbart suggested teachers use a five-step method:
- Step 1: Preparation: The teacher prepares a topic that interests the students.
- Step 2: Presentation: The teacher presents the topic.
- Step 3: Association: The teacher asks questions to help students connect new knowledge with what they already know.
- Step 4: Generalization: Students look back at the lesson and summarize what they learned.
- Step 5: Application: Students connect what they learned to moral ideas for daily life.
Herbart also suggested using interesting literature and historical stories in teaching. He thought these would appeal more to students than the dry reading books popular at the time. He believed children would enjoy the deeper meanings in classic stories.
Herbart's ideas about education became very popular in the mid-1800s, especially in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. His focus on developing individual potential and civic responsibility fit well with democratic ideas. Even though some of his specific methods changed after World War I, his ideas still influence how we think about critical thinking and the importance of literature in education today.
Aesthetics and Ethics
Herbart's ideas about aesthetics deal with what makes something beautiful or not. He believed that beauty is different from what is just useful or pleasant. Beauty is something that everyone agrees on, if they look at it the right way.
Ethics, which is a part of aesthetics for Herbart, deals with how our choices and desires make us feel good or bad. He found five main ideas that guide our moral judgments:
- Internal Freedom: How a person's will matches their own judgment of it.
- Perfection: How well a person's different desires work together.
- Benevolence: How a person's will relates to thinking about others.
- Right: What to do when there is a conflict with others.
- Retribution or Equity: What is fair for good or bad intentions.
When we think about many people together, these ideas lead to concepts like a fair society, laws, and culture. Herbart believed that being virtuous means your will perfectly matches these moral ideas. The idea of duty comes from things that stop us from being virtuous.
Theology and Beliefs
In his views on theology (the study of religious belief), Herbart thought that the argument from design (the idea that the world's complexity points to a creator) was a good reason to believe in a higher power. However, he also believed that we can't have exact knowledge about this higher power, and it's not necessary for practical life.
Psychology and the Mind
Herbart was the first to really show how important psychology (the study of the mind) is for education. He built on the teaching methods of Pestalozzi.
Herbart's Idea of "Reals" in the Mind
Herbart disagreed with Kant about how we get true knowledge. Kant thought we were born with certain ways of thinking. But Herbart believed we learn only by studying real objects in the world and the ideas that come from observing them. He concluded that "the world is a world of things-in-themselves [and] the things-in-themselves are perceivable." This means everything we see exists. He called these external objects "reals," similar to Leibniz's idea of monads.
Herbart agreed with Locke that the mind starts as a "tabula rasa" (a blank slate). He believed the soul had no inborn ideas. The soul, which is also a "real," was thought to be very passive at first. It also resisted changes from outside forces. Even though "reals" seem to be changed by other forces, Herbart believed they are actually unchangeable. "Reals" tend to clash and struggle with each other, with each "real" fighting to keep itself as it is (this is called Selbsterhaltung).
The soul protects itself through what Herbart called Vorstellungen, or ideas (mental representations). These ideas were seen as active forces. Herbart even tried to explain them with mathematical formulas, showing the influence of Newton's ideas about how forces interact. The mechanics of ideas meant they could move in different ways, either coming into our conscious mind or sinking into the unconscious. Different ideas meet and combine to form more complex ideas. Herbart thought that ideas were not perfect copies of things in the world. Instead, they were the direct result of how a person's experiences interact with the outside world. To truly understand facts, a person needs to know how their mental ideas combine and affect each other.
Apperception and Learning
Herbart believed that ideas become clearer and stronger when they cross a "limen of consciousness." This is like a boundary between the conscious (what we are aware of) and the unconscious (what we are not aware of). Ideas strong enough to enter the conscious mind form the apperceiving mass. This is a group of similar and related ideas that are currently dominating our conscious thoughts.
Building on Leibniz's ideas, Herbart thought the apperceiving mass was crucial. It helps select similar ideas from the unconscious to join the conscious mind. Even when a person is focused on complex ideas in the conscious mind, ideas in the unconscious can combine with related ones. They can then try to break through the "limen" into the conscious, possibly interrupting the current thoughts.
Apperception was a key part of Herbart's educational theory. He thought it was even more important than just sensing things. By understanding a child's apperceiving mass related to the subject being taught, teachers could learn how to present material. This would help direct the child's ideas and thoughts to pay attention to specific information.
More About Herbart
You can find more about Herbart in books like Hartenstein's introduction to his Kleinere philosophische Schriften und Abhandlungen (1842–1843). In America, the National Society for the Scientific Study of Education was founded as the National Herbart Society, showing his lasting impact.
See also
In Spanish: Johann Friedrich Herbart para niños
- Neo-Kantianism
