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.

Religious Epistemology and Religious Pluralism

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...