Historical aspects of cultural psychology: The impact of Johann Gottfried Herder

In this survey of the historical conditions of the development of cultural psychology in eighteenth century two areas of research figure prominently: the attack on Cartesian dualism in the ''history of the human mind'', formulated by Condillac on Lockean principles, and the reflection of stages of cultural development, resulting from the comparison of ethnographic data. In the work of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), Germany's first author who untertook it to establish philosophy on the basis of anthropology, these directions were combined into a new type of historical explanation of the evolution of culture: the development of the human mind and the accumulation of collective knowledge were seen by him in close relationship, intimately connected with the process of the invention of signs and symbolic forms of cultural interaction.