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

This basic epistemological and hermeneutical insight is developed in various parts of Schleiermacher's later work. In his lectures on hermeneutics, for example, Schleiermacher developed the thought that "hermeneutics is supposed to lead to the understanding of the thought-content" of an utterance. (28) The thought-content of the utterance can be understood in two ways, either as the conceptual thought behind the utterance, or as the nonconceptual experience, the "feeling" of the author. In his Hermeneutics, Schleiermacher does not use the term feeling, but speaks of "thought" or of "that by which the author is moved to the utterance." (29) Later, in The Christian Faith, Schleiermacher puts feeling at the very heart of his hermeneutics; theological language communicates the religious feeling of the author to the interpreter. (30) I cannot discuss here the differences between the understanding of feeling in Schleiermacher's early and later work, but it will suffice to note that Schleiermacher does assume that language ultimately relates to the preconceptual, nonverbal feeling. Interpretation serves to recover the feeling of the author, and to enable the interpreter to participate in the author's feeling. (We must keep in mind here that feeling is not emotion, but self-consciousness.)

In sum, Schleiermacher developed an epistemology that allows the human person to perceive something in its relation to the totality of being, seeing it in its place in the meaningful whole of the universe.

IV

There are some striking parallels between the epistemology of Schleiermacher's Speeches and Heidegger's Ereignis. Jaeger summarizes Heidegger's understanding of language pointing out that for Heidegger, language does not describe objects, but expresses meaningful relations of being. "Through language, which does not only talk about single beings, or Essent (Seiendes), but puts Being (Sein) and relations of Being (Seinsbezuge) into words, the world is explicitly disclosed and communicable in its meaningful significance." (31) Already in this short description of Heidegger's understanding of language we can see one key parallel with Schleiermacher's understanding; for both language is not about isolated objects, but about relations of Being, or the observer and the object both embedded in the totality of being, the universe.

For Heidegger, the disclosure of the meaningful relations of being takes place in the Ereignis. He emphasizes that the Ereignis is not the result of a cause but that it is the giving of language. (32) In the Ereignis the human being encounters language; Being is disclosed and the human being is enabled to speak. In the Ereignis, language gives itself to the observer, and human language can answer to language. (33) In this context, we need to distinguish carefully between language as Sage (saying), or, as Heidegger uses it elsewhere, Geldut der Stille (peal of stillness (34)) on the one hand and language as Lauten des Wortes (sounding of the word) on the other. Language as Sage is the meaningful relationship of being as it is disclosed to the observer, whilst Lauten des Wortes is human language, which attempts to express what has been disclosed. In the Ereignis, a human being encounters Being, a single thing is unveiled in its relation and difference to the world.