Abstract

The Dialektik is acknowledged as central to the theological and philosophical thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher . The few German-language studies devoted solely to the Dialektik are primarily theological or Hegelian treatises. Drawing on the Jonas edition, the dissertation explains the critical and constructive arguments of the Dialektik and offers an interpretation of the work as a theory of art . A review of criticism of the Dialektik from its publication in 1839 until recently discloses that the work has been seen mainly in terms of transcendental theory and theology, with lesser notice taken of its roles as a theory of science, an introduction to ethics, and a sister discipline of hermeneutics. By viewing the Dialektik as a theory of art, the reader can begin to understand Schleiermacher's diverse critical and constructive philosophical agenda in the Dialektik, which is more epistemological than theological. Construing dialectic as a theory of art and science as art, Schleiermacher reflected on knowledge in a way critical of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. With the notion of philosophy as theory of art, anticipated in the Speeches, Soliloquies, Versuch einer Theorie des geselligen Betragens, the Plato introductions and the Brouillon, Schleiermacher stressed individuality in knowing; continuity between science and philosophical reflection; an incapacity to know the Absolute; and a constitutive as well as regulative function for transcendental ideas. Like preconceived ideas in art, transcendental principles are in knowledge and can be abstracted from it. The theory of such principles is practical since the principles should lead to technical rules for knowing. These are treated in the formal part, whose structure and notion of logic as art was probably influenced by contemporary logic textbooks. Philosophy itself is also art, and the presentation of its ideas cannot be definitive. Art and science are conditioned by a priori logical elements in reason, which has its ground in a transcendent being. Characterization of the transcendent as "living" is common to religion speculation, but contradicts Schleiermacher's own criteria forbidding positive statements about the transcendent