The influence of Schleiermacher's second speech On Religion on Heidegger's concept of Ereignis

Review of Metaphysics, The, June, 2008 by Alexander S. Jensen

III

Friedrich Schleiermacher published the Speeches On Religion (14) anonymously in 1799. They were meant to be a defense of Christianity in a context that was dominated by Enlightenment Rationalism and Kant's critique of the same. In the Speeches, Schleiermacher famously argues that religion is neither metaphysics (knowledge) nor morals (doing). Instead, Schleiermacher bases his defense of religion on the notion of feeling. He develops this theme in the Speeches using the terms "intuition and feeling (Anschauung und Gefuhl)," (15) or "sensibility and taste for the universe (Sinn und Geschmack fur das Unendliche)." (16)

"Intuition and feeling" are at the heart of Schleiermacher's understanding of religion. (17) They constitute the religious perception of the world as distinct from rationalist or idealist perceptions. It is important to note that in his Speeches Schleiermacher describes religion as a way of perceiving the world, as an epistemology, which is based on intuition and feeling. In other words, religion is the right use of intuition and feeling.

Thus, in rejecting traditional dogmatic understandings of religion, Schleiermacher defines religion as an attitude towards the world and the universe. Schleiermacher is quite open about the fact that his endeavor is deeply influenced by Baruch Spinoza's pantheism. He even goes as far as calling upon his readers to identify with Spinoza in the manner of classical antiquity: "Respectfully offer up with me a lock of hair to the manes of the holy rejected Spinoza!" (18) As Julia Lamm has pointed out in her study of Schleiermacher's use of Spinoza, Schleiermacher's appropriation of Spinoza's thought enabled him to develop a "Christian doctrine of God within the limits set to reason by Kant's philosophy." (19)

Schleiermacher learned from Spinoza that, in Lamm's words, "everything is determined by limits and relations, everything comes from, and is part of, the infinite." (20) This means that all individuals (human and material) are embedded in the infinite, yet, at the same time, different from it. The infinite, for Schleiermacher, is the totality of being. It is not just the sum of all things, but the higher unity and order which is situated beyond the world but not separate from the individual things. (21)

Consequently, Schleiermacher needs to develop an epistemology that allows for the perception of the individual as part of the universe, and which at the same time overcomes the distinction between the observer and the observed. Observers must be aware that they, together with the object of their observation, are part of the same totality of being.

At the heart of Schleiermacher's epistemology lies the insight that the observer is actually passive; the universe, which is the ultimate beholden, is active. Schleiermacher formulates this poetically: "the universe creates its own observers and admirers." (22) Lamm summarizes Schleiermacher's thought by saying that religion "is a viewing, a discovering. It recognizes real existence--the infinite and the universal relationship of all that is finite. It views, it feels, it intuits, but it does not itself create." (23)