Interaction Between Cultures: Herder’s Volk and Fichte’s Nation

This chapter aims to compare national subcultures within modern civilization, more precisely to compare nationally predominant systems of ideas and values, called ideologies, taken as so many variants of modern ideology at large. Such comparison is made possible by its being located within a wider perspective where modern ideology itself is subjected to comparison with systems of the same order. In 1774 J. G. Herder publishes "Another Philosophy of History. Herder sees in history the contrasted interplay of individual cultures or cultural individuals each of which constitutes a specific human community or Volk, each embodying an aspect of general humanity in a unique and irreplaceable manner. J. G. Fichte philosophy is based on the primacy of the "I," initially of the individual, but ultimately also of the nation, that is, of the "folk" organized in a "state." Fichte in his turn has powerfully contributed to what was to become the German idea of the nation.