Die Philosophie Schleiermachers (review)

674 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 26:4 OCTOBER 1988 theory to our own cultural condition. For this and for its insightful and scholarly examination of Kant's broadest transcendental aims, this book is well worth reading. CLAUDE MACMILLAN Onondaga Community College Gfinter Scholtz. Die Philosophie Schleiermachers. Ertr~ige der Forschung, ~17- Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgeseilschaft, 1984. Pp. viii + 187. DM 39. While Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is remembered in the history of Western thought as the inaugurator of the modern era in theological reflection, students of his work are aware of the fact that his intellectual interests and projects extended beyond theology. Many of his academic endeavors were devoted to philosophical themes on which he lectured annually at the University of Berlin from the time of his co-founding of that institution in 181o until his death in 1834. Schleiermacher 's S~immtliche Werke (1834-1864) comprises thirty-one volumes and is divided into three sections: theology, sermons, and philosophical writings, this last section numbering ten large volumes. Scholtz's book has two purposes: it is at once an introduction to the broad strokes of Schleiermacher's philosophical thought and an overview of its scholarly reception. While noting Schleiermacher's importance for contemporary philosophical discussion in areas such as hermemeutics, the philosophy of language, the Frankfurt School's criticism of Idealism, communication theory, the philosophy of religion and aesthetics (x-3), Scholtz leaves the construction of historical bridges to the reader and devotes his efforts to an account of Schleiermacher's philosophical thought and its historical reception . In many respects, these two goals are inseparably intertwined, especially as they relate to Schleiermacher's philosophical corpus. Nearly all of Schleiermacher's philosophical works--and certainly the most important--were published posthumously as lecture notes from his own hand or from auditors' notebooks that were edited by trusted students. This fact places the issue of Schleiermacher interpretation into the heart of the primary sources themselves and helps to explain the diversity, or-euphemistically --richness, in the scholarly reception of Schleiermacher's philosophical thought. Following the author's introduction, the book is divided into two sections. The first is a general overview of trends in Schleiermacher interpretation; the second a sketch of Schleiermacher's thought and its specific scholarly reception in discrete areas of his published work. Scholtz divides the general scholarly reception of Schleiermacher's philosophical thought into two periods: the first is characterized by the critical reception of Schleiermacher by late Idealism and the Hegelian School which saw Schleiermacher either as a friendly or unfriendly interlocutor; the second, impelled by various motives, assumed that Schleiermacher's thought possessed an integrity worthy of critical examination in its own right. Scholtz dates this transition from the year 1868, somewhat artificially the centennial of Schleiermacher's birth and more substantively the time of BOOK REVIEWS 675 publication of Dihhey's famous Leben Schleiermachers 087o), a massive work which steadfastly and somewhat romantically refused to consider Schleiermacher's thought apart from the historical conditions of his life and times. Although there is some ground for Scholtz's categorization, its disadvantage is that it does not sufficiently take into account the enormous influence of dialectical theology on the history of Schleiermacher interpretation in the twentieth century, an influence that arguably had greater ramifications for the interpretation of Schleiermacher's philosophical than for his theological thought. The second section of Scholtz's study is a valuable overview of the basic themes in Schleiermacher's philosophical thought intermeshed with a history of scholarship that pays close attention to both divergence and consensus in scholarly viewpoints. After an overview of the unusual blend of religion, poetry, and philosophical criticism that characterizes such early works as the Speecheson Religion (1799), the Soliloquies (18oo), the Confidential Letters on Lucinde (18oo), and the dialogue ChristmasEve (1806), Scholtz examines the "systematic disciplines" that comprise Schleiermacher's abiding philosophical concerns: dialectics, ethics, philosophical theology, aesthetics, hermeneutics, political theory, pedagogy, and psychology or epistemology. This work by work analysis is helpful both to the individual entering Schleiermacher's thought-world for the first time and to the specialist seeking a concordance of scholarly opinion of Schleiermacher interpretation. Scholtz is especially effective in...