A quasi-empiricist theory of concepts entails that understanding an author's concepts requires imaginatively recapturing the author's relevant sensations

In On Thomas Abbt’s Writings, On the Cognition and Sensation, and elsewhere Herder makes one of his most important and influential innovations: interpretation must supplement its focus on word-usage with attention to the author’s psychology. Herder implies several reasons for this (some of which would subsequently be developed more explicitly and elaborately by successors such as Schleiermacher and Friedrich Schlegel): (1) As was already mentioned, he embraces a quasi-empiricist theory of concep