赫德在德國歷史中是一個百科全書式的人物，他的著作範圍涵蓋哲學、文學、歷史、人類學、詩歌、語言學、異國文化研究。在這樣廣大的領域中，筆者找節的切入點是赫德與康德之間在知識上的差異，個問題在華文世界比較少人去碰觸。但是研究這個問題能夠提供在康德還沒有成為某種權威時一種可能性的哲學對話。本文處理赫德對於康德《第一批判》的批判，赫德自稱為是《後批判》(Metakritik)。作為康德的學生，赫德本來贊成康德早期的知識論，但是完全反對康德後判時期的發展。後來他走上一條以「存有」(Sein)立足點的知識論的路，這和康德批判時期以自我意識為立足點的知識論有極大的差異。在這兩個不同的立足點之上，我們見到赫德與康德的時空理論和範疇理論不同的面貌。

Herder an was encyclopedic figure in the history of Germany. His works covered the range of philosophy, literature, history, anthropology, poetry, music, linguistics, research of foreign culture. Among such varieties of themes I select the problem of the difference between Kant’s and Herder’s epistemology. This problem didn’t attract much attention in the Chinese-speaking world. But this kind of study can provide a possibility of philosophical dialogues between Kant and Herder on the equal basis. With that one can image a situation of debate before Kant became an authority in philosophical world. This essay is concerning Herder’s critique on Kant’s first Critique. Herder called this critique “Metakritik”. As a student of Kant, Herder followed his teacher during the earlier period, but afterwards he fully disagreed with Kant’s later development of the critical period. Herder developed later his own theory on the standpoint of Being. Kant, on the contrary, built his theory on the standpoint self-consciousness. On the basis of these different standpoints, we see totally different features of their theories, especially the theory of space and time, and the theory of categories.