Monologues. Speeches about religion to educated people who despise it. Monologues by Schleiermacher Friedrich - Hermeneutics

German Protestant theologian and philosopher, founder of hermeneutics as a scientific discipline, who regarded it as "the art of understanding." One of the authors of the research university model.

The name "hermeneutics" comes from "... from God Hermes- the god of cunning and ulterior motives. Born out of theology and enlightenment desire to free herself from bias. Founder of early hermeneutics Friedrich Schleiermacher developed techniques for interpreting the text - how to enter the position of the author, master his language and psychology. […] Modern hermeneutics starts with an assistant Husserl - Martin Heidegger, his main work - "Being and Time" (Sein und Zeit, 1929). According to him, the task is not to understand the text, not even the distant reality described in the text, but life itself. "

Klein L.S., History of archaeological thought in 2 volumes, Volume 2, St. Petersburg, Publishing house of St. Petersburg State University, 2011, p. 345.

Friedrich Schleiermacher introduced the concept: "Entering the hermeneutic circle" , which he represents as the relation of the whole and the part: to understand the whole, it is necessary to understand its individual parts, but to understand them requires an understanding of the meaning of the whole. Understanding is seen by him as a process of movement from the whole to the parts, and then from parts to the whole: from intuitive pre-understanding of the whole to revealing the meaning of the parts, and then returning to understanding the whole (in practice, this means that the interpretation of the text depends on the context, and understanding context - from the interpretation of words).

« Friedrich Schleiermacher, explaining the mechanism of understanding, he introduces the concept of the hermeneutic circle: a word, being ambiguous by its nature, is understood through the context surrounding it, although the context itself is understood through the words included in it. The parts must be understood through the whole, and the whole through the parts. This circle does not open Aristotle logic. Hence the objections ".

He argued that through the senses, a person can establish a certain relationship with the Divine. His theory was called theology of feelings.

It is safe to say that no other theological movement had a greater influence on Christian philosophy in the 19th century. Schleiermacher combined the subjectivism that stems from the Protestant evangelical awakening with German idealist philosophy. Schleiermacher rid Protestant Christianity of questions about the value of natural religion, the Bible, and church organization. He placed feeling at the center of modern religious belief.

Schleiermacher wrote a serious theological apology for the experience of subjective Protestant religious behavior. In a book written in 1799, he stated:

“The essence of religion is not thinking or action, but intuition and feeling. She wants to intuitively know the Universe, sincerely eavesdrop on its own incarnations and actions, strives in childish passivity to be perceived and filled with instantaneous influences of the Universe. "

By defining religion in this way, Schleiermacher eliminates many of the problems that critics of Christianity have focused on, those he called "educated people who despise religion." Religion does not depend on written books or church organizations. From a theological point of view, Schleiermacher's claims are even more radical. He anchors religion not in nature, not in revelation, not in religious myths, and not in the nature of God. He sees the roots of religion in human nature. The divine principle can be discovered through the analysis of subjective human feelings.

Schleiermacher writes:

“What is revelation? Any primary and new self-disclosure of the Universe and its inner life to man is a revelation ... and everyone should, because it is best to know what is repeated and already experienced in him, and what is original and new; if any of the latter has not yet been created in you in this way, then its revelation will be a revelation to you, and I advise you to ponder over it. What is inspiration? This is only a general expression for the feeling of true morality and freedom. Every free action becomes a religious act, every restoration of religious intuition, every manifestation of religious feeling that expresses itself in such a way that the intuition of the universe is transmitted to others, all this happens by inspiration. And this is the action of the Universe, carried out through one for many ”.

“You, I hope, do not recognize it as blasphemy and see no contradiction in the assertion that the inclination towards this concept of a personal God or the denial of the latter and the inclination towards the concept of an impersonal omnipotent force depends on the direction of fantasy; You will understand that by fantasy I mean not something subordinate and vague, but the highest and most primary in man, and that outside of it there can only be a reflection about it, which, therefore, also depends on it; You know that in this sense your fantasy, your free creation of thoughts, is that by virtue of which you come to a representation of the world, which cannot be given to you from outside and at the same time is not a later result of inference; and in this representation you are then enveloped by the feeling of omnipotent power. "

Schleiermacher uses the term "fantasy", which in modern aesthetic philosophy is associated with some special power of a poet or artist and is a fundamental universal human ability to subjectively feel the infinity of the Divine. Schleiermacher did not believe that all people should be inspired artists, but used the same terms to convey his message to readers: those who sincerely analyze their subjective feelings, can feel God and know the true religion, without turning to either the Church, or the Bible, or the clergy. In other books, he tried to find a place for the Bible, clergy and the Church, but his fundamental theological position opened the way for religious and cultural antinomianism. This was a major step towards the general narcissism of nineteenth-century theology. Knowing God is knowing human nature. "

Frank Turner, European Intellectual History from Rousseau to Nietzsche, M., "Kuchkovo Field", 2016, p. 301-303.

(in Niskey and Barbie), whose religious spirit made a deep and lasting impression on the young Schleimacher. But along with religiosity, this same community, by its complete alienation from science and vital interests, generated in Schleiermacher a never-fading protest against narrow and intolerant orthodoxy.

At the age of 19, Schleiermacher left the seminary that had become a spiritual prison for him and, admonished by his father's reproaches, went to the university in Halle. Here Schleiermacher devoted himself with intense zeal to the study of philosophy under the guidance of the Wolfian Eberhard. The struggle that took place at that time between the criticism of Kant and Leibnizian philosophy plunged him into a conflict of old philosophical views and new trends. He emerged from this conflict without fully submitting to either one or the other influence. Kant attracted him by the critical sobriety of his theory of knowledge, but Schleiermacher decisively rejects his method of substantiating metaphysical ideas on the basis of morality in his first youthful work: "Ueber das höchste Gut".

Having passed the theological examination at the insistence of his father and uncle, Schleiermacher for some time was a home teacher and educator in the family of Count Don in Schlobitten. Here he began his preaching work. Then Schleiermacher worked as a church preacher, first in Landsberg and then in Berlin. Preaching was the calling of Schleiermacher, who was naturally gifted with oratory. This activity did not stand in contradiction with his rejection of church dogma. His sermons consisted mainly of the moral and psychological interpretation of religious ideas. His own pious mood was in perfect harmony with this content.

In general, Schleiermacher was a deeply religious person. “Since I think and exist,” he wrote about himself, “religion has been the root basis of my being; I ate it in my youth, it remained in me even when God and the immortality of the soul disappeared before a skeptical gaze. His life task was to reconcile this religiosity with criticism destructive for religious dogma. This problem could be solved only in one way: by reducing religion to a completely independent psychological basis in relation to reason. Feelings and moods were such a basis for Schleiermacher.

In addition to preaching, Schleiermacher also acted as a professor of theology, first in Halle and later in Berlin. Schleiermacher was not only a theoretician. In 1807 and 1808, difficult for Germany, the years of French rule, he, together with Fichte and other leaders of the national revival, aroused the courage and energy of his fellow citizens with his speeches. Under his chairmanship, the issue of the union of Protestant faiths (Lutheran and Reformed) was considered in 1817. Schleiermacher ardently stood for union as a free union and mutual recognition of various manifestations of the same religious feeling. But he refused to associate his name with the establishment of this union when it got the look of a violent event. This refusal in connection with Schleiermacher's free thinking in the field of political and religious issues led to his very strained relations with the German government. Distinguished by a sincere moral sense and understanding of human nature, Schleiermacher provided the highest degree a humanizing influence on all his contemporaries who knew him. “For me, in relation to humanity, you are the same as Goethe and Fichte were in poetry and philosophy,” F. Schlegel wrote to him during the period of their friendship.

Views

Schleiermacher's philosophy has the character of eclecticism: in the field of epistemology, he adhered to Kant, sympathizing with the rationalism of Spinoza, far from favorable to all kinds of intrusions of metaphysics into the field of religion and at the same time entering into an alliance with romantic mysticism, Schleiermacher had an undeniable ability to combine the incompatible ...

Schleiermacher's general philosophical views are set forth in his "Dialectics", which appeared in print only after his death. By dialectics, he means the art of philosophical substantiation. The possibility of philosophical knowledge is conditioned by the complete correspondence of thinking and being. The logical connection of concepts corresponds to the causal connection of external reality. As generic concepts serve as the logical basis for species, so exactly higher genera beings really determine the existence of the lower ones. Cognition arises from the interaction of two factors: organic or sensory and intellectual functions. The organic gives the material, the intellectual gives the form. The first causes a chaotic variety of perceptions, the second introduces a system, certainty and unity. The prevalence of one or the other of these functions is constantly fluctuating human thinking moving from pure perception to abstract concepts. Ascending from concrete notions of sensibility to more and more general concepts, thinking finally comes to the idea of the absolute unity of being. This idea is no longer a concept, since it does not express anything definite. It refers to the indefinite subject of an infinite set of judgments. In the same way, descending to the field of sensory perceptions, thinking comes to the possibility of an infinite number of judgments expressing individual facts of all diverse experiences. Thus, the area of certain concepts has two opposite boundaries. These boundaries coincide with the transition of thinking, on the one hand, into a purely sensual, on the other, into a purely intellectual function.

Two factors of thinking correspond to two kinds of being: real and ideal. Self-consciousness proves the inner identity of being and thinking of the real and the ideal. At the foundation of all existence lies the absolute world unity or God. This unity is inevitably assumed by our thinking, but can never be realized in thought. Deprived of such unity, our knowledge is always relative. Metaphysical and religious concepts of God, according to Sh., In no way express His essence. The various qualities or properties usually ascribed to God contradict His unity. These qualities represent nothing more than a reflection of the Divine nature in the religious consciousness of a person. In the same way, the concept of personality cannot be associated with the idea of God, since personality always presupposes something finite and limited. In general, any attempt to think of God in certain concepts or concepts inevitably leads to mythology. God and the world are inextricably linked. Everything depends on God, but this dependence is not expressed in separate acts or miracles, but in the general connection of nature.

Philosophy of religion

The philosophy of religion in Schleiermacher's worldview is of paramount importance. The first essay devoted to the study of religion was "Speeches about religion aimed at educated people who are among her ill-wishers ”(). The goal of this work was to show that religion belongs to a completely independent area in the human soul, in which it reigns indefinitely: "True religion is the feeling and taste of infinity." The denial of religion is based on mixing it with metaphysics and morality. The essence of metaphysics, cognition in general, is thinking. The essence of morality is activity. The peculiar nature of religion is contemplation and feeling. Religiousness consists in a purely passive consciousness of the influence of the world whole or God on us. As soon as we begin to interpret this effect we are aware of and refer it to finite things, to stone, sun, stars, to certain metaphysical concepts, we break with the true essence of religion and move into the area of fantasy or abstract thinking that is completely alien to it. Contemplation of the world whole determines the emergence of feelings. In this regard, contemplation and feelings are religiosity. The dependence on the world whole is perceived and recognized in each special way. Accordingly, those concepts and ideas in which religious feeling is expressed turn out to be different. From this comes a plurality of religions and confessions. But since the essence of religion consists in the very consciousness of dependence and the feeling associated with it, religion by its very essence is distinguished by complete unity and tolerance. Intolerance arises from the interference of metaphysical ideas in religion, which are mistaken for the essence of religion and give rise to disagreement and division. In general, concepts and representations constitute the secondary and derivative content of religion. They serve only as symbols of religious feeling. Likewise, morality seeks to establish distinction and certainty in the relationship of the individual to the world. In contrast to this, religion sees the same in everything, in all people the activity of the same God. But although science and morality are essentially different from religiosity, they must all accompany each other. For knowledge of the world and the correct impact on it is possible only insofar as the presence of God in everything is directly experienced in a person. But in this experience only, and not in those concepts that arise about it, and there is a true religious piety. This piety, according to Sh., Is contrary to the belief in personal immortality, which is usually inherent in religions. Piety should, on the contrary, strive to expand the individuality of the individual and, as it were, dissolve it in the infinite. “Among the finite, to be one with the infinite, to be eternal in every moment” - this is what, according to Sh., True immortality. Understanding religion as the inner intimate life of the spirit, Sh. Has a completely negative attitude to all external religious institutions. With particular enthusiasm, he defends the complete freedom of religious life from interference from the state. The sharp division between religion and morality established in Speeches on Religion was subsequently mitigated. Already in the collection of sermons published in 1801, Sh. Affirms the inextricable link between religiosity and moral self-determination and recognizes spiritual dignities that are not associated with moral activity and have no value.

"Speeches about Religion" were received by modern Swiss society with the most lively interest, but not with the same sympathy. Representatives of philosophy were rather hostile to them. Fichte saw in them only tangled Spinozism. They made an even more repulsive impression on Schelling, who at that time sharply condemned everything vague and mystical; only later did he recognize them as outstanding. The work was also greeted with an unfavorable reception by the great poets Schiller and Goethe. The circle of romantics reacted most sympathetically to Recha. Sh .'s closeness to romanticism was determined both by his personal relationships with romantics and by some of his inner kinship with this trend. That feeling of world unity and its influence on the world, that “taste for the infinite” (Geschmak fü rs Unendliche), which plays such an important role in Sh., Are essentially no different from the mystical contemplations and aspirations of romantics. Inner spiritual life with its vague trends for Sh., As well as for romantics, was the most important and valuable area. In this respect, Novalis was closest to him, in which the romanticism of feeling manifested itself with the greatest depth and strength.

Schleiermacher's connection with the romantic school was also expressed in his "Intimate Letters" about "Lucinda" by F. Schlegel. These "letters" clearly characterize the moral character of the philosopher. Acting as a defender of his friend's romance greeted with general indignation and justifying the romantic eulogy of free love in the position of a church preacher, Sh. Not only showed friendly loyalty and a kind of courage, but also extraordinary moral tact. Here he managed to give the most sublime meaning and a very subtle psychological interpretation to the disordered and only slightly above the usual frivolity of Schlegel's thoughts. However, Sh .'s relationship with romanticism still had quite definite boundaries. Sh. Was a romantic only to the extent that he recognized feeling as the most important area of the soul, but the romanticism of ideas and representations was alien to him.

Liberal theology

The theological work "Christian Faith" ("Der Christliche Glaube", 1822) is a reworking of the theology course read by Schleiermacher at the University of Berlin. Here, religiosity is based on a feeling of absolute dependence. This feeling is the stimulus for the knowledge of God. Theological concepts and even dogmas do not belong to the true essence of religion, but represent the product of reflection on religious feeling. This feeling is, in the end, the last resort when discussing the dogmatic side of religion. Thus, only those dogmas receive theological justification that can be reduced to religious feeling and are its necessary expressions. In Christianity, he sees the most perfect religion, which has its historical basis in the perfect and sinless person of Christ. The psychological basis of Christianity is the consciousness of redemption and the conviction that this redemption was accomplished by Christ. By redemption, he understands such an effect on people, thanks to which the feeling of absolute dependence, usually suppressed, arises with greater ease and strength.

Ethical views

Schleiermacher's ethical views constitute the main content of most of his writings. Ethical concepts in the spirit of romanticism are outlined in Monologues. The basic principles here are individuality and spiritual freedom. Each individual has a special ethical value as an expression of human nature in a very specific and distinctive way. In general, the right to originality is the most sacred human right in all areas of personal and social life. Here Sh. Defends, as the highest task of mankind, the inner formation of spiritual life. With indignation, he denounces the external well-being and richness of culture, based on soulless automatism and associated with spiritual poverty and slavery. "What could have saved me," he exclaims, "if it were not for you, divine fantasy, and if you did not give me the correct premonition of a better future." In this ideological creativity of the future, Sh. Notes the ethical significance of fantasy. In the last monologue, the thinker expresses wonderful thoughts about eternal youth. Youth is a state of mind that does not depend on the body. It is eternal and unfading, because the spirit's relentless striving for knowledge and possession. As a systematic statement of ethics, greatest value has a "Philosophical Doctrine of Morality" (posthumous edition on the remaining manuscripts). At the heart of Sh .'s ethics lies the idea that there is no opposition between the laws of nature and moral obligation. Actions with the same necessity follow from human nature and its interaction with the world, like all other natural phenomena from its acting forces. But in both cases, the process of development is, in a certain sense, free, since it is conditioned by this or that individuality. As in morality there is a deviation from the laws of the due, so in nature the normal law of development undergoes a change in deformities, diseases, etc. Morality is divided into three basic principles: good, virtue and duty. Good is the interpenetration of nature and reason. It is carried out by the influence of the human mind on its own body and the external world. In this influence, Sh. Distinguishes 1) organizing, or constructive, and 2) symbolizing activity. In the first, man brings intelligence into external nature and becomes its master. This includes activities such as gymnastics, technology, agriculture, etc. The second serves for the external expression of the inner spiritual life. This subdivision intersects with the difference of activities in relation to the community (similarity) and individuality of human manifestations. Thus, four types of moral activity are obtained: intercourse, property, thinking and feeling. In the relations of people with each other (division of labor, exchange of products), their organizing activity is manifested, as the same for all individuals. The corresponding general symbolizing activity is thinking and language. Individual formative activity leads to the establishment of a closed area of individual organization and ownership, that is, property. Its most typical expression is a house or dwelling. Feeling is the area of individual symbolization. Its artistic symbol is art. Art is to feeling and religion what language is to science. Virtue is understood by Sh. As a moral force that determines education different types good. In essence, this is the same rationality that is in goodness connected with nature, but only that has not yet emerged from the limits of a human being. If good depends on virtue, then and vice versa, perfect virtues are possible only with the implementation of the highest and integral good. Virtues differ in their justification in pure intelligence or sensibility. Virtue, as a purely rational and ideological content, is a mood; as pertaining to the realm of the sensible and subordinate to the order of time - skill. This intersects with a subdivision based on the difference between cognition and representation. Accordingly, four types of virtue are obtained: wisdom, that is, the mood in cognition, love, that is, the mood in representation, prudence, that is, skill in cognition, and perseverance, that is, skill in representation. The distinction between duty and virtue was not established by Sh. With sufficient clarity. Virtue has the character of lasting strength, while duty is imposed as a single action prescribed by the moral law. Following his favorite architectonics on the opposites of the universal and the individual, Sh. Divides duty into duties of law, love, vocation and conscience. All these areas of morality do not represent anything independent, but are different aspects of the single highest good. Referring to the field of ethics any symbolizing human impact on external nature, Sh. Understand aesthetics as an ethical discipline. Accordingly, external nature itself is excluded from the realm of beauty, which is understood exclusively anthropologically, that is, as a work of art.

History of philosophy

Schleiermacher's numerous works on the history of philosophy, especially his excellent translations of Plato, were of great importance for philosophical education in Germany. Sh .'s worldview, regarded as a philosophical system, had only a transient and essentially unimportant significance. The lack of distinctive and sufficiently clear philosophical principles does not make it possible to include it in general development philosophical thought as a necessary and independent link. Sh .'s tremendous influence on his contemporaries and the next generation was determined by the moral strength and originality of Sh .'s entire personality, as well as his outstanding literary talent. Sh .'s views on the essence of religion are of much greater importance. In a living feeling and consciousness of God, he really opened the Holy of Holies of true religiosity, that area in relation to which "there is neither a Greek nor a Jew." According to Sergei A. Alekseev, Sh .'s main mistake was the fundamental opposition of feeling and cognition, as completely independent, unrelated functions. This dualism of the human personality in the sphere of its highest manifestations was due to the too early recognition of the negative conclusions of criticism and empiricism, to which Sh. Surrendered without a fight. To save religiosity, Sh. Had no choice but to protect her from knowledge with an impenetrable wall. Recognizing the need to symbolize feelings, Sh. Did not realize that this symbolization - whether it is expressed in representations or concepts - could not be alien to the field of knowledge, that, due to the unity of the human personality, feeling can only strive for what is more or less substantiated truth. Justifying religion as a feeling, Schleiermacher rejected the opportunity to justify it as a world outlook. And in this we must give him his due, as an honest and consistent thinker.

Essays

Sh .'s works were published in 3 sections: I) Theology, II) Sermon, III) philosophy and mixed works, Berlin, 1835-64. The most important of them are:

“Ueber die Religion. Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern "(1st ed., 1799; 2nd and 3rd ed. Significantly modified in 1806 and 1821; critical edition Pünjer, containing all three editions at once, - 1879 );
Monologen (1800);
Vertraute Briefe über F. Schlegels Lucinde (1880);
Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre (1803);
Die Weihnachtsfeier (1806);
Der Christliche Glaube (1821-22);
Ueber den Unterschied zwischen Naturgesetz und Sittengesetz (1825);
Entwurf eines Systems der Sittenlehre (posthumous edition of Schweizer, 1835; revised edition of Kirchmann, Philosophische Sittenlehre, 1870);
Dialektik (posthumous edition of Jonas, 1839);
Aesthetik (posthumous edition of Lommatsch, 1842);
Die Lehre vom Staat (posthumous edition of Brandis, 1845);
Erziehungslehre (posthumous edition Platz, 1849);
Psychologie (posthumous ed. George, 1864). A very extensive literature about Sh. Is indicated in detail in Iberweg Heinz's History of a New Philosophy (Kolubovsky's translation, 1899, pp. 380 and 381).

Editions in Russian

Speeches about religion. Monologues. Publishing house "Aletheia", 1994. - 432 p. - ISBN 5-87983-015-2.
Hermeneutics. - SPb., "European House", 2004.

Notes (edit)

Literature

Gabitova R. M. Philosophy of German Romanticism: Hölderlin, Schleiermacher. M., 1989 .-- 160 p.
Rakitov A.I. Experience of reconstruction of the concept of understanding of Friedrich Schleiermacher // Historical and Philosophical Yearbook. M., 1988.S. 150-165. ISBN 5-02-008028-4

Schleiermacher Friedrich - Hermeneutics

SPb .: "European House". 2004 .-- 242 p.

ISBN 5-8015-0176-2

The book is the first translation into Russian of "Hermeneutics" by Friedrich Schleiermacher, a famous German theologian, philosopher and translator, the founder of modern philological hermeneutics - the science of interpreting and understanding the text.

For this edition, the text published by Schleiermacher's student Fr. Luke in 1836 and republished by M. Frank in 1977, which reflects the development of Schleiermacher's hermeneutic theory. The book is intended for a wide range of readers interested in the problems of text interpretation, history and theory of hermeneutics.

Friedrich Schleiermacher - Hermeneutics - Contents

Friedrich Schleiermacher and his hermeneutic theory (A.L. Volsky)
First part. Grammatical interpretation
The second part of. Psychological interpretation
On the search for unity of style
Discovering identity in composition
Features of the psychological task
Applying the above to the New Testament
Features of the technical problem

Schleiermacher Friedrich - Hermeneutics - Preface

Friedrich Schleiermacher was a man quite in the spirit of his time: He stood at the origins of the early romanticism circle of Friedrich Schlegel, then was a friend of Henrietta Hertz's salon. He spent more than half of his life on the streets of Berlin. He looked short and somewhat hunchbacked. When he walked through the city with Henrietta Hertz, unusually beautiful woman, which, moreover, was a whole head taller than him, passers-by could hardly restrain their laughter. Schleiermacher laughed with them, without the slightest hint of anger: he did not create illusions about his appearance and was not particularly worried about this. The circle of women close to him also included Dorothea White, Rachel from Varnhagen.

Following Speeches on Religion (1799), Schleiermacher wrote Monologues (1800) and then, together with Fichte, Savigny, F. A. Wolf and Humboldt, set about founding the University of Berlin, which opened in 1810. He was the first dean of the theological faculty of this university, secretary of the Academy of Sciences, employee of the Prussian Ministry of Education, preacher in the Church of the Trinity (in this capacity he taught confirmation to Bismarck) and the author of countless scientific publications.

Berlin was undoubtedly the main place of his social activities. The second most important place in his intellectual biography - and there is no doubt about this either - was Halle. The stay here, which generally lasted only four years, was of great importance for Schleiermacher, since it affected two decisive phases of his development: on the one hand, overcoming the religious crisis of his student years, on the other, entering an academic position.

The hermeneutic problem can be fully solved only by linking grammar with dialectics, the teaching of art with special anthropology, then, in hermeneutics, there is a powerful incentive to combine the speculative with the empirical and the historical. Consequently, the larger the hermeneutic task facing a generation, the more powerful this kind of lever it becomes. In addition, a close examination of history teaches that since the renaissance of the sciences, the occupation of interpretation has made the greater and more versatile contribution to spiritual development, the more it delved into scientific principles.

Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher

Speeches about religion to educated people who despise it. Monologues

Translated from German by S.L. Frank

St. Petersburg: Aleteya, 1994.- 336 p.
Series Monuments of religious and philosophical thought of the New Time. Western religious philosophy
Format: DjVu 5 MB
Quality: scanned pages + text layer + table of contents
Russian language

Reprinted from the publication: F. Schleiermacher. Speeches about religion. Monologues., Moscow, 1911 (supplement to the journal "Russian thought").
The personality and views of Schleiermacher are little known in our country. This book introduces the reader to one of the greatest figures of that German spiritual movement at the end of the 18th and early XIX century, which is called the "romantic school". And - what is perhaps the most remarkable thing - Friedrich Schleiermacher was, it seems, the only thinker of this era, whose ideas have continuously influenced and continue to influence German thought.

The personality and views of Schleiermacher. Translator's introductory article 7

Translator's Preface 35
Index of the contents of "Speeches on Religion" 37
Index of Contents "Monologues" 41
Speeches on Religion 43
Preface by the author to the third edition 45
First speech. Self-justification 48
Second speech. On the essence of religion 66
Third speech. On religious education 132
Fourth speech. Social Principles in Religion, or the Church and Priesthood 152
Fifth speech. About religions 180
Afterword 218
Explanations to "Speeches on Religion" 223
Explanations for the first speech 223
Explanations for the second speech 226
Explanations for the third speech 238
Explanations for the fourth speech 241
Explanations for the fifth speech 263
Explanations for the afterword 272
Monologues. New Year's Gift 275
Preface by the author to the second edition 277
Preface by the author to the third edition 278
Handling 279
1. Meditation 280
2. Trials 289
3. Worldview 303
4. Horizons 315
5. Youth and old age 326

In addition to preaching, Schleiermacher also acted as a professor of theology, first in Halle and later in Berlin. Schleiermacher was not only a theoretician. In 1807 and 1808, difficult for Germany, the years of French rule, he, together with Fichte and other leaders of the national revival, aroused the courage and energy of his fellow citizens with his speeches. Under his chairmanship, the issue of the union of Protestant faiths (Lutheran and Reformed) was considered in 1817. Schleiermacher ardently stood for union as a free union and mutual recognition of various manifestations of the same religious feeling. But he refused to associate his name with the establishment of this union when it got the look of a violent event. This refusal in connection with Schleiermacher's free thinking in the field of political and religious issues led to his very strained relations with the German government. Distinguished by a sincere moral sense and understanding of human nature, Schleiermacher exerted an extremely humanizing influence on all his contemporaries who knew him. “For me, in relation to humanity, you are the same as Goethe and Fichte were in poetry and philosophy,” F. Schlegel wrote to him during the period of their friendship.

Views

Schleiermacher's general philosophical views are set forth in his "Dialectics", which appeared in print only after his death. By dialectics, he means the art of philosophical substantiation. The possibility of philosophical knowledge is conditioned by the complete correspondence of thinking and being. The logical connection of concepts corresponds to the causal connection of external reality. As generic concepts serve as the logical basis for species, so the higher kinds of being really determine the existence of the lower ones. Cognition arises from the interaction of two factors: organic or sensory and intellectual functions. The organic gives the material, the intellectual gives the form. The first causes a chaotic variety of perceptions, the second introduces a system, certainty and unity. In the predominance of one or the other of these functions, human thinking constantly fluctuates, moving from pure perception to abstract concepts. Ascending from concrete concepts of sensibility to more and more general concepts, thinking finally comes to the idea of the absolute unity of being. This idea is no longer a concept, since it does not express anything definite. It refers to the indefinite subject of an infinite set of judgments. In the same way, descending to the field of sensory perceptions, thinking comes to the possibility of an infinite number of judgments expressing individual facts of all diverse experiences. Thus, the area of certain concepts has two opposite boundaries. These boundaries coincide with the transition of thinking, on the one hand, into a purely sensual, on the other, into a purely intellectual function.

Philosophy of religion

The philosophy of religion in Schleiermacher's worldview is of paramount importance. The first essay devoted to the study of religion was "Speeches about religion, directed to educated people who are among its ill-wishers" (). The goal of this work was to show that religion belongs to a completely independent area in the human soul, in which it reigns indefinitely: "True religion is the feeling and taste of infinity." The denial of religion is based on mixing it with metaphysics and morality. The essence of metaphysics, cognition in general, is thinking. The essence of morality is activity. The peculiar nature of religion is contemplation and feeling. Religiousness consists in a purely passive consciousness of the influence of the world whole or God on us. As soon as we begin to interpret this effect we are aware of and refer it to finite things, to stone, sun, stars, to certain metaphysical concepts, we break with the true essence of religion and move into the area of fantasy or abstract thinking that is completely alien to it. Contemplation of the world whole determines the emergence of feelings. In this regard, contemplation and feelings are religiosity. The dependence on the world whole is perceived and recognized in each special way. Accordingly, those concepts and ideas in which religious feeling is expressed turn out to be different. From this comes a plurality of religions and confessions. But since the essence of religion consists in the very consciousness of dependence and the feeling associated with it, religion by its very essence is distinguished by complete unity and tolerance. Intolerance arises from the interference of metaphysical ideas in religion, which are mistaken for the essence of religion and give rise to disagreement and division. In general, concepts and representations constitute the secondary and derivative content of religion. They serve only as symbols of religious feeling. Likewise, morality seeks to establish distinction and certainty in the relationship of the individual to the world. In contrast to this, religion sees the same in everything, in all people the activity of the same God. But although science and morality are essentially different from religiosity, they must all accompany each other. For knowledge of the world and the correct impact on it is possible only insofar as the presence of God in everything is directly experienced in a person. But in this experience only, and not in those concepts that arise about it, and there is a true religious piety. This piety, according to Sh., Is contrary to the belief in personal immortality, which is usually inherent in religions. Piety should, on the contrary, strive to expand the individuality of the individual and, as it were, dissolve it in the infinite. “Among the finite, to be one with the infinite, to be eternal in every moment” - this is what, according to Sh., True immortality. Understanding religion as the inner intimate life of the spirit, Sh. Has a completely negative attitude to all external religious institutions. With particular enthusiasm, he defends the complete freedom of religious life from interference from the state. The sharp division between religion and morality established in Speeches on Religion was subsequently mitigated. Already in the collection of sermons published in 1801, Sh. Affirms the inextricable link between religiosity and moral self-determination and recognizes spiritual dignities that are not associated with moral activity and have no value.

Liberal theology

Ethical views

Schleiermacher's ethical views constitute the main content of most of his writings. Ethical concepts in the spirit of romanticism are outlined in Monologues. The basic principles here are individuality and spiritual freedom. Each individual has a special ethical value as an expression of human nature in a very specific and distinctive way. In general, the right to originality is the most sacred human right in all areas of personal and social life. Here Sh. Defends, as the highest task of mankind, the inner formation of spiritual life. With indignation, he denounces the external well-being and richness of culture, based on soulless automatism and associated with spiritual poverty and slavery. "What could have saved me," he exclaims, "if it were not for you, divine fantasy, and if you did not give me the correct premonition of a better future." In this ideological creativity of the future, Sh. Notes the ethical significance of fantasy. In the last monologue, the thinker expresses wonderful thoughts about eternal youth. Youth is a state of mind that does not depend on the body. It is eternal and unfading, because the spirit's relentless striving for knowledge and possession. As a systematic presentation of ethics, the most important is the "Philosophical Doctrine of Morality" (posthumous edition based on the remaining manuscripts). At the heart of Sh .'s ethics lies the idea that there is no opposition between the laws of nature and moral obligation. Actions with the same necessity follow from human nature and its interaction with the world, like all other natural phenomena from its acting forces. But in both cases, the process of development is, in a certain sense, free, since it is conditioned by this or that individuality. As in morality there is a deviation from the laws of the due, so in nature the normal law of development undergoes a change in deformities, diseases, etc. Morality is divided into three basic principles: good, virtue and duty. Good is the interpenetration of nature and reason. It is carried out by the influence of the human mind on its own body and the external world. In this influence, Sh. Distinguishes 1) organizing, or constructive, and 2) symbolizing activity. In the first, man brings intelligence into external nature and becomes its master. This includes activities such as gymnastics, technology, agriculture, etc. The second serves for the external expression of the inner spiritual life. This subdivision intersects with the difference of activities in relation to the community (similarity) and individuality of human manifestations. Thus, four types of moral activity are obtained: intercourse, property, thinking and feeling. In the relations of people with each other (division of labor, exchange of products), their organizing activity is manifested, as the same for all individuals. The corresponding general symbolizing activity is thinking and language. Individual formative activity leads to the establishment of a closed area of individual organization and ownership, that is, property. Its most typical expression is a house or dwelling. Feeling is the area of individual symbolization. Its artistic symbol is art. Art is to feeling and religion what language is to science. Virtue is understood by Sh. As a moral force that determines the formation of various types of good. In essence, this is the same rationality that is in goodness connected with nature, but only that has not yet emerged from the limits of a human being. If good depends on virtue, then and vice versa, perfect virtues are possible only with the implementation of the highest and integral good. Virtues differ in their justification in pure intelligence or sensibility. Virtue, as a purely rational and ideological content, is a mood; as pertaining to the realm of the sensible and subordinate to the order of time - skill. This intersects with a subdivision based on the difference between cognition and representation. Accordingly, four types of virtue are obtained: wisdom, that is, the mood in cognition, love, that is, the mood in representation, prudence, that is, skill in cognition, and perseverance, that is, skill in representation. The distinction between duty and virtue was not established by Sh. With sufficient clarity. Virtue has the character of lasting strength, while duty is imposed as a single action prescribed by the moral law. Following his favorite architectonics on the opposites of the universal and the individual, Sh. Divides duty into duties of law, love, vocation and conscience. All these areas of morality do not represent anything independent, but are different aspects of the single highest good. Referring to the field of ethics any symbolizing human impact on external nature, Sh. Understand aesthetics as an ethical discipline. Accordingly, external nature itself is excluded from the realm of beauty, which is understood exclusively anthropologically, that is, as a work of art.

History of philosophy

Schleiermacher's numerous works on the history of philosophy, especially his excellent translations of Plato, were of great importance for philosophical education in Germany. Sh .'s worldview, regarded as a philosophical system, had only a transient and essentially unimportant significance. The absence of distinctive and sufficiently clear philosophical principles does not make it possible to include it in the general development of philosophical thought, as a necessary and independent link. Sh .'s tremendous influence on his contemporaries and the next generation was determined by the moral strength and originality of Sh .'s entire personality, as well as his outstanding literary talent. Sh .'s views on the essence of religion are of much greater importance. In a living feeling and consciousness of God, he really opened the Holy of Holies of true religiosity, that area in relation to which "there is neither Greek nor Jew." According to Sergei A. Alekseev, Sh .'s main mistake was the fundamental opposition of feeling and cognition, as completely independent, unrelated functions. This dualism of the human personality in the sphere of its highest manifestations was due to the too early recognition of the negative conclusions of criticism and empiricism, to which Sh. Surrendered without a fight. To save religiosity, Sh. Had no choice but to protect her from knowledge with an impenetrable wall. Recognizing the need to symbolize feelings, Sh. Did not realize that this symbolization - whether it is expressed in representations or concepts - could not be alien to the field of knowledge, that, due to the unity of the human personality, feeling can only strive for what is more or less well-founded truth. Justifying religion as a feeling, Schleiermacher rejected the opportunity to justify it as a world outlook. And in this we must give him his due, as an honest and consistent thinker.

Essays

Sh .'s works were published in 3 sections: I) Theology, II) Sermon, III) philosophy and mixed works, Berlin, 1835-64. The most important of them are:

“Ueber die Religion. Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verächtern "(1st ed., 1799; 2nd and 3rd ed. Significantly modified in 1806 and 1821; critical edition Pünjer, containing all three editions at once, - 1879 );
Monologen (1800);
Vertraute Briefe über F. Schlegels Lucinde (1880);
Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre (1803);
Die Weihnachtsfeier (1806);
Der Christliche Glaube (1821-22);
Ueber den Unterschied zwischen Naturgesetz und Sittengesetz (1825);
Entwurf eines Systems der Sittenlehre (posthumous edition of Schweizer, 1835; revised edition of Kirchmann, Philosophische Sittenlehre, 1870);
Dialektik (posthumous edition of Jonas, 1839);
Aesthetik (posthumous edition of Lommatsch, 1842);
Die Lehre vom Staat (posthumous edition of Brandis, 1845);
Erziehungslehre (posthumous edition Platz, 1849);
Psychologie (posthumous ed. George, 1864). A very extensive literature about Sh. Is indicated in detail in Iberweg Heinz's History of a New Philosophy (Kolubovsky's translation, 1899, pp. 380 and 381).

Editions in Russian

Speeches about religion. Monologues. Publishing house "Aletheia", 1994. - 432 p. - ISBN 5-87983-015-2.
Hermeneutics. - SPb., "European House", 2004.

Notes (edit)

Literature

Gabitova R. M. Philosophy of German Romanticism: Hölderlin, Schleiermacher. M., 1989 .-- 160 p.
Rakitov A.I. Experience of reconstruction of the concept of understanding of Friedrich Schleiermacher // Historical and Philosophical Yearbook. M., 1988.S. 150-165. ISBN 5-02-008028-4