Schleiermacher, Friedrich Daniel Ernst [addendum] | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

In the past forty years there has been an explosion in research on Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher in regard to both philosophical and theological dimensions of his thought. This entry is limited to discussing three issues of significance to philosophers: religious epistemology and the problem of religious pluralism, hermeneutics, and the question of the influence of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, and others on Schleiermacher's thought as a whole.

Schleiermacher's contribution to the question of religious pluralism lies in his religious epistemology, which is developed in the first twenty-two chapters of The Christian Faith (1821–1822, second edition 1830/1999) as well as in On Religion (1799/1996; other editions followed in 1806, 1821, and 1831). In both, he offers a comprehensive theory of the nature of religion grounding it in experience. In On Religion he grounds religion in an original unity of consciousness that precedes the subject-object dichotomy, and in The Christian Faith the feeling of absolute dependence is grounded in immediate self-consciousness.

In The Christian Faith Schleiermacher explains that doctrines are expressions of this fundamental experience: Christian doctrines are "accounts of the Christian religious affections set forth in speech" (p. 76, § 15). This view has been labeled experiential expressivism. Christian doctrines are not a set of truth claims that are to be judged in virtue of their correspondence with reality, but are rather a human attempt to express in symbols the experience of absolute dependence. This original experience is immediate and is not itself conceptually structured, for any conceptual structure presupposes the subject-object dichotomy and thereby also one's counterinfluence on that which is posited. God cannot be "given as an object exposed to our counter-influence, however slight this may be" (1999, p. 18; §4.4). As such, theological concepts and symbols are only indirect representations of one's consciousness of God. Given such an understanding of Christian doctrines, it is possible that two religions with differing symbols both adequately express the feeling of absolute dependence. Nevertheless, while the feeling of absolute dependence is not itself conceptually structured, it determines the way that one represents and knows oneself and the world around one. Hence, Schleiermacher states that "the world will be a different thing to a man according as he apprehends it from the standpoint of a God-consciousness completely paralyzed or of one absolutely paramount" (p. 267; §64.2).

Schleiermacher's hermeneutics has also received a good deal of philosophical scrutiny. There are two diametrically opposed positions on the question of how it is possible to interpret a text or utterance. The first is the structuralist position: The meaning of any given utterance is determined by the publicly available meanings of the words that constitute it. Schleiermacher calls this the "grammatical" element of language. According to the intentionalist position the meaning of an utterance lies in the intention of the speaker. The history and inner life of the speaker is of decisive importance in determining its significance. Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, especially when understood in the context of his Dialektik (2001), offers a fruitful way to move beyond this impasse. According to Schleiermacher, one cannot strictly separate receptivity and spontaneity because both share a single underlying root. This plays a crucial role at several levels, the first being how one moves from sense-data to the ordinary world of tables and chairs. How the sense-data is organized will depend on the interpretive work of language: there is no bedrock given in receptivity. Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein's famous "duck-rabbit" is a useful example of this. Similarly, just as sense data provide no bedrock "given," neither do the publicly available meanings of words. While language users begin from there, their own mental activity is important in shaping and sometimes even recasting those publicly available meanings. The level of the subject's activity in shaping these meanings will vary from activity to activity, from high in aesthetic endeavors to low in scientific ones. For Schleiermacher, hermeneutics is "the art of understanding … the … discourse of another person correctly" (Hermeneutics and Criticism, p. 3). Both grammatical and psychological elements are vital to this task.

Lastly, a good deal of scholarship explores the systematic character of Schleiermacher's thought and how it relates to preceding philosophical thought. In what ways was Schleiermacher influenced by the systems of Plato, Leibniz, Spinoza, and Kant? For instance, Schleiermacher's Dialektik has received a good deal of scrutiny. Several scholars point to Schleiermacher's Leibnizian heritage and its relation to Schleiermacher's reception of foundational Kantian ideas. Specifically, Schleiermacher's adoption of Leibniz's complete concept, which contains all the predicates applicable to an individual, does not square with another idea essential to Schleiermacher's system, namely that one is both a spontaneous and receptive being. Schleiermacher agreed with Kant that what is given to one through sensation is necessary, although not sufficient for knowledge. But if this is true, all true judgments cannot be analytic, as the Leibnizian tradition assumed. There is an important class of judgments that are synthetic: they are true in virtue of some third thing that one becomes aware of through one's receptivity.

Religious Experience.

The Christian Faith. Translated by H. R. Mackintosh and J. S. Stewart. Edinburgh, 1948; New York, 1963.

Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 24 vols. to date. Edited by Hans-Joachin Birkner et al. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980–.

On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). Translated with an introduction by Richard Crouter. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Hermeneutics and Criticism and Other Writings. Translated and edited by Andrew Bowie. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Dialektik, edited by Manfred Frank. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001.

Lectures on Philosophical Ethics. Translated by Louise Adey Huish, edited by Robert B. Louden. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Frank, Manfred. Das Individuelle Allgemeine: Textstrukturierung und Interpretation Nach Schleiermacher. 1 Aufl. Ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989.

Helmer, Christine, ed., in cooperation with Marjorie Suchoki, John Quiring, and Katie goetz. Schleiermacher and Whitehead: Open Systems in Dialogue. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2004.

Lamm, Julia. The Living God: Schleiermacher's Theological Appropriation of Spinoza. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

Mariña, Jacqueline. The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

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