This paper attempts to analyze the positioning of the young Herder against the modern philosophies of history and

the pragmatic perspectives of the historiographical School of Gttingen. The objective is to show that the confrontation of Herder with such positions was based on an antagonistic view on the phenomenon of temporality. For, the two aforementioned positions assumed a reversible conception of time that excluded in principle any possible asymmetry between past and future and tended to ignore, therefore, the modern experience of historicity. As we argue in this paper, would be the natural sciences of that time those that will offer to Herder the tools needed to develop an alternative notion of temporality. Keywords: Philosophy of history, temporality, natural sciences, history, modernity