HERBART, JOHANN FRIEDRICH, a German philosopher, was b. at Oldenburg, May 4. 1776. He was educated at Jena, M a very early age, he was familiar with religious and metaphysical dectrines and discusions, and at twelve had 'read the systems of Wolff and Kant. He became the pupil of Fichte, and received his philosophy with enthusiasm; but after more reflection, he found himself obliged to reject much of his system, and to form one of his own. In 1805 he was appointed extraordinary professor of Gottingen; in 1809 he obtained the chair of philosophy at Konigsberg. In 1833 he returned to Gottingen, where he remained till his death, Aug. 14, 1841. His collected works were published by his scholar Hartenstein (12 vols., Leip. 1850-52).
The starting-point of Herbart's metaphysics is the thesis that the ordinary (meta physical or popular) conceptions of a thing with attributes, change, matter, and self consciousness contain in themselves contradiction. The multiplicity and variety of the world of phenomena cannot be explained on the hypothesis of only one real (substance); a multiplicity of reals (mounds) must be assumed, and out of their mutual relations time, space, nature, and thought arise. In ethics, Herbert rejects Kant's autonomy of
the pure reason as basis, and founds on developed and cultured feeling or common sense—in this resembling Shaftesbury. The five poetical ideas are freedom, perfection, benevolence, justice, and fairness. In psychology, Ilerbart endeavored, by regarding ideas or states of mind as so many physical forces, to understand their relations to one :another at any given time by help of a most elaborately wrought-out mathematical calculus. The Pamlagogic of Ilerbart is admirably practical. In opposition to con temporary idealism, Herbert called his system realism. On the fall of Hegelianism in Germany, Herbart's system became very influential, and has still numerous adherents in the German universities.