Friedrich Schleiermacher, a contemporary of Hegel, bought into Kant's views on ethics and the division between scientific and religious realms, but didn't like Kant's ultimate view of religion, i.e. that its only support is an indirect (and really pretty flimsy) appeal to what we have to as a practical matter believe for ethics to really make sense to us.
Instead, for Schleiermacher (a Lutheran preacher), religion is grounded on the emotion of piety, which each one of us can experientially (phenomenologically) confirm the existence of, if we're not too poor in spirit to do so. This reflection on our own emotions is what provides meaning to life: religion is not a theory of the way the world is or a direct command to some action, but is fundamentally an inexpressible but all-pervasive experience of oneness with the world.
This of course raises some questions: if religion isn't knowledge, then what is its relation to metaphysical claims such as in the existence of God? Even if piety is not the justification for ethical action, fully human action or knowledge, according to S., will involve piety. Religion ends up being an essential part of life fully on par with science and ethics. Also, the feeling of piety has to play itself out socially in particular historical circumstances, and that's where we get religious traditions. So S. is a pluralist about religion, but not a non-denominational spiritualist (like maybe Emerson).
We're reading an early work (from 1799), "On Religion; Speeches to its Cultured Despisers," (focusing on the first two of the four speeches) which was originally written when he was at his most theologically adventurous (influenced greatly by Spinoza), but then was revised and has end notes to each "Speech" written much later in his life (1821) where he wants to prove that he really is a Christian.
Read the text online or buy the book.
We'll also look at the prefaces to Kant's "Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason" (sometimes translated as "Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone"), which you can read online here.
Tom McDonald says
May 9, 2011 at 2:47 pmThe title “On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers” implies a debate that sounds remarkably contemporary for something written 200 years ago.
Tom McDonald says
May 9, 2011 at 3:16 pmHowever the problem that dooms all mysticisms is this:
A: ‘You can’t say what God is, it’s a feeling, an immediate connection’. B: ‘Well, you’ve said quite a bit there’. A: ‘Yes but the words can’t fully express the feeling’. B: ‘Sounds like you’re describing a great aesthetic experience like enjoying a bit of music or art, that’s actually quite intelligible, expressible, and sayable, to my understanding’. A: ‘No … it’s more than that .. it really really really is more’. B: ‘Well, what do you mean then?’.
I.E. as Hegel insists against Romantic mystifications: the ideas of religion actually are reasonable and intelligible and we are silly to insist that ‘mediation’ somehow contaminates some ineffable purity of experience.
Daniel Horne says
May 9, 2011 at 4:22 pmTom, I think you’re persuasively making the case that you have little use for mysticism. But I don’t think you’ve persuaded anyone that mysticism was “doomed” by any problem you or Hegel identified. Just because Hegel found the ideas of religion are reasonable and intelligible, doesn’t make it so. Let’s fight!
Russ says
May 9, 2011 at 7:59 pmWatch out, the battle lines are being drawn: Kierkegaard vs. Hegel all over again! Looking forward to this one.
Daniel Horne says
May 9, 2011 at 8:09 pmActually, I have no stake in the religious claims of any particular writer discussed on PEL to date. All “arguments” in favor of religious belief are deeply flawed in their own idiomatic ways. That’s true whether they belong to Schleiermacher or Hegel or Kant or Kierkegaard or Spinoza. Anyone trying to “argue for” religious belief of any sort will persuade no one to get on the train who hadn’t already bought a ticket.
Russ says
May 9, 2011 at 9:23 pmUnderstood, Daniel. K would agree that religious arguments don’t persuade. Considering your challenge to Tom, and the fact that each of you demonstrated insight into these two esoteric thinkers in the podcasts, I thought we might be headed for a modern-day dialogue between K and H.
Daniel Horne says
May 9, 2011 at 9:52 pmHi Russ,
Depending upon the mood of the guys, we’ll see if there’s any way K. can inform our discussion of Schleiermacher. Tom is quite right that Hegel rejected Schleiermacher’s vision for religion, and they each seem to have had little use for each other personally. Here’s Hegel on Schleiermacher’s theory of religion as a “feeling of absolute dependence”:
Greg Vargo says
May 21, 2013 at 1:12 amWhere does this quote come from directly?
Daniel Horne says
May 22, 2013 at 1:08 pmHi Greg,
The quote is from Hegel’s foreward to HFW Hinrichs’ Die Religion im inneren Verhältnisse zur Wissenschaft (Heidelberg 1822), at xix. You can download the book free of charge via Google Books:
http://bit.ly/16PtnLc
Fun trivia: That quote caused quite a factional rift within the university at the time.
Burl says
May 10, 2011 at 5:19 amThat quote of Hegel on dogs being spiritual is the first idea of his that I can understand – it is actually profound, as emotions are what we all amount to. Lip service to rationality is just that.
I understand there is a historic joined-at-the-hip relation of philosophy and religion (mainly via theology), but they have little in common, and theology is just really bad philosophy (like most continental philosophy)..
Religion has unity of self with otherness as its foundational purpose – the many as one. This activity is existentially tied-up in our creaturely emotions (seeking, nurturing, fear, rage, panic, play, and vigilance – Panksepp’s emotional affects). This is why dogs can be almost as vicious as religious sectarians.
Philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, employs rationality (dialectic, ratio – division) in order that the individual may most abstractly view him/herself as a solitary one among the welter of the many. (Thus, it plum baffles me why so many analytic logic-lovers play chess, as it requires you to put up with someone else for the game’s duration.)
Religion is about harmonious community – culture; philosophers seek argumentation in support of intellectual abstraction. Pirsig would tell us these are two distinct and independent reality processes. Whitehead would accuse the philosopher of mistaking the abstract for the concrete, the latter being the “ocean of feelings” in which we move and breathe.
Burl says
May 11, 2011 at 5:46 amNever mind…where’s the next cartoon or famous quote for our edification and discussion.
SMD says
February 23, 2013 at 12:09 pmFeb. 23rd, 2013
Last evening, I listened to your fun and engaging podcast on Schleiermacher. The though toccurred to me that you might be interested in creating a podcast regarding Manfred Frank’s contemporary interpretation of Schleiermacher and his relevance today. Frank is interested in how to combine French Analytic Theory with aspects of Schleiermacher’s ideas about God. Personally, I find that concept fascinating.
Seth Paskin says
February 23, 2013 at 6:00 pmNot familiar with either Frank or French Analytic Theory…recommended readings?