-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 1 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 Introduction The question of the value of religion presses upon us today more than ever. On the one hand there are those who question its validity from the standpoint of an extreme scientific naturalism. For them religion is an atavistic remnant from the past, a storehouse of superstitious nonsense plaguing humanity. None of it is to be taken very seriously, except, perhaps, in order to reject it unconditionally. On the other hand there are persons who take what they call "religion" very seriously. For them religion functions to define the members of their group as the "good ones" standing over against a world of evil enemies that must be vanquished. This kind of religion too often can encourage a kind of extremism ending in violence, for at its heart lies a violent rejection of anything perceived as foreign or different. Between these two extremes lie many of us. We recognize the value of science, willingly conceding that all natural phenomena must be explained naturalistically. The Enlightenment changed us; modernism and postmodernism changed us, and pre-Enlightenment religion is no longer a possibility for us. Yet we are loath to accept that this means that we must banish anything having transcendental significance from our lives. Still, we also recognize that religion can be dangerous. Religion is dangerous when it becomes absolutist and Manichean, that is, when it mistakes what always must be a finite and conditioned apprehension of the transcendent for the transcendent ground itself, and when it further bases its reactionary exclusion of what it perceives as other on this fundamental mistake. In such cases, religion degenerates into idolatry. Idolatry, however, is not only the stuff of fundamentalisms. It is a perennial danger tempting each of us, and it tempts in myriad ways. Authentic religion requires a 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 2 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 2 Transformation of the Self certain kind of openness, and a willingness to live with uncertainty. It requires the recognition of our finitude and of the conditioned character of all our knowledge; it requires a willingness to depend on what to us must remain, in fundamental ways, unknown. These attitudes are very difficult to achieve in practice. How, then, are we to think about religion such that we can both answer its naturalistic critics and provide a program for the avoidance of idolatry? A serious engagement with the character of human finitude is necessary to deal with the latter. The problem that scientific naturalism poses to religion is yet more complex. Any attempt to mediate between science and religion, however, must come to terms with the question of human consciousness, for it is human consciousness that is, after all, our window to the world, however we may conceive it. It thus appears that the key to mediating between both a scientific naturalism that denies any possibility of transcendent meaning and a reactionary fundamentalism claiming possession of absolute truth lies in an investigation of the nature of the subject, its relation to the world, and the possibility of its relation to a ground transcending both self and world. This investigation is one that cannot be constrained by a certain naturalistic bias at the outset. Such a bias would be in place if the knowing and willing subject were to be conceived as simply yet another object in the world, that is, as a bit of brain matter in motion on which supervene certain strange states of consciousness. In such a case, the phenomenon of consciousness is merely objectified and made an object in the world. Here the more difficult questions of the nature of subjectivity as such, as that which supplies the primordial window upon the world, are completely bypassed. It was first and foremost the groundbreaking philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) that brought to light the fact that all knowledge is the product of a fundamental activity of consciousness. For Kant, an investigation of the possibility of objective knowledge led back to an investigation of the conditions of the knowing subject. The nature of the subject and the character of its fundamental activity, that is, the transcendental conditions of knowledge, were thereby placed at the forefront of philosophical inquiry. Kant's Copernican revolution in philosophy fueled a corresponding revolution in theology. Friedrich Daniel Ernst 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 3 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 Introduction 3 Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is often referred to as the father of modern theology. Influenced by Kant, he placed the subject at the forefront of theology: it is through consciousness that God relates to the world. The meaning of theological utterances was to be traced back to the subject's religious experience, an experience whose transcendental conditions could themselves be investigated. This experience is one having both cognitive and volitional components; both components were understood by Schleiermacher as fundamentally interrelated and as stemming from the depths of consciousness. The self experiences the absolute through the immediate self-consciousness; the way the self apprehends its relation to the absolute in turn conditions the way that world is apprehended, valued, and felt. In The Christian Faith Schleiermacher says of the individual that has undergone a religious transformation: "now all his activities are differently determined . . . and even all impressions are differently received-which means that the personal self-consciousness, too, becomes different" (CF §100.2; KGA I.13,2 107; 427). Insofar as the personal self-consciousness has been transformed, the actions that arise from it, too, will be different from those of the former self. However, Schleiermacher was also aware of an inverse relation: how the self relates to others conditions the way that the self is conscious of its absolute dependence. The two poles are inherently related. As such, central to Schleiermacher's outlook was his ethical theory. It is in the sphere of ethics that religion has its ultimate meaning, for the fruit of all true religion lies in its transformative power over the self. Here lies the significance of Schleiermacher's achievement. His focus on religious experience and the transcendental conditions of subjectivity allowed him to provide an account of religion that was neither reductionistic nor dogmatic.1 Religious experience has its 1 Notable recent European treatments of Schleiermacher's work dealing with his analysis of transcendental subjectivity and human finitude are: Peter Grove, Deutungen des Subjekts: Schleiermachers Philosophie der Religion and Sarah Schmidt, Die Konstruktion des Endlichen. In Deutungen des Subjekts Grove details Schleiermacher's analysis of subjectivity, paying particular attention to his transcendental analysis of self-consciousness and how it relates to his philosophy of religion. Schmidt's study focuses on Schleiermacher's Dialectic as an analysis of the conditions of the possibility of knowledge given the character of our finite subjectivity. Another excellent treatment of Schleiermacher's ethics is Peter Berner, La Philosophie de Schleiermacher: 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 4 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 4 Transformation of the Self origins in the transcendental conditions of subjectivity itself, and can therefore not be reduced to or explained in naturalistic terms alone;2 it is grounded in an absolute that transcends the self. On the other hand Schleiermacher emphasized this fact, that the absolute transcends consciousness; as such, the self only experiences the effects of the absolute on consciousness.3 As Schleiermacher argued in the Dialectic, the transcendental unity of the self is merely analogous to the unity of the absolute.4 Moreover, the knowing subject is finite and situated, and as such can offer only a partial perspective on the world. This means that all action, if it is to be truly ethical and capable of refracting the divine love, must proceed from the awareness of the limited and perspectival character of the self 's standpoint. It must be acknowledged that in all human knowing there is no "view from nowhere;" all acts of knowledge are conditioned by the inherently particular and subjective standpoint from which they first originate. This does not imply imprisonment in a solipsistic world, but it does mean that the construction of knowledge is first and foremost an inter-subjective enterprise that occurs through dialogue, and that in this enterprise "beginning in the middle is unavoidable" (Dial KGA II 10/1, 186, §62). Behind Schleiermacher's theological achievement lay a rigorous grappling with fundamental metaphysical problems. As such his theology cannot be adequately understood aside from his philosophy. Herméneutique, Dialectique, Ethique. Berner's study emphasizes the relation between Schleiermacher's ethics, his theory of knowledge, and his hermeneutics. 2 Andrew Dole is certainly mistaken when he reads Schleiermacher as a determinist who believed religion could be thoroughly explained naturalistically. See Andrew Dole, "Schleiermacher and Otto on Religion." This reading completely ignores the significance of Schleiermacher's transcendental analysis of self-consciousness. 3 Robert Adams correctly notes that Schleiermacher's theological method "is connected with a long tradition of theologians (such as Maimonides and Aquinas) who have been reluctant to claim positive knowledge of the divine nature as it is in itself. . . . Schleiermacher insists on the preeminence of the way of causality (CF, 1830, § 50.3). Indeed, it is hard to think of a theologian who has adhered more rigorously or more exclusively than he to the way of causality." "Faith and Religious Knowledge," 44. 4 Peter Grove's analysis of central passages of the Dialectic is certainly correct: "Der entscheidende Schritt besteht darin, dass diese Einheit der Subjecktivität als Analogie des übersubjektiven Grundes erklärt wird. Der zweite Satz lautet ohne Weglassungen: 'In diesem also haben wir die Analogie mit dem transcendentalen Grunde, nämlich die aufhebende Verknüpfung der relativen Gegensäze' (KGA II/10.1, 266). Deutungen des Subjekts, 509. 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 5 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 Introduction 5 Moreover, his philosophy is of interest in its own right. This is especially true of his philosophical ethics, which has as its presupposition his account of personal identity and the nature of selfconsciousness. Hans-Joachim Birkner has noted: "without a doubt, Schleiermacher's philosophical ethics represents his most important achievement, and in the history of ethics constitutes a completely original project."5 More recently, Gunter Scholz has claimed that Schleiermacher's ethics "has a far greater significance" than his other achievements; "it tackles the more important problems, has a much wider perspective, and can lay claim to greater originality."6 And in the Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher, Frederick Beiser concludes his piece on Schleiermacher's ethics with the following: If it [Schleiermacher's ethics] is not recognized as one of the fundamental areas of his philosophical achievement, the problem lies with the public rather than the author. Schleiermacher's comprehensive conception of ethics; his insistence that ethics broaden its horizons, that it investigate such important phenomena such as love, free sociability and friendship; his demand for the restoration of the highest good; his critique of the fact-norm distinction; and his insistence that our ethics ultimately depend upon our general metaphysical view of the world – all these remain a challenge to ethics today. If the subject is as dreary in 2002 as it was in 1802 it is because we have failed to listen to powerful voices like his own.7 Because Schleiermacher's philosophical ethics are inherently bound up with his metaphysics of the absolute and philosophy of religion, his ethics is especially relevant to the question of how to conceive of the relation between religion and ethics. Schleiermacher presents the two as integrally related. Contra Kant, who sought to make religious conviction rational by portraying it as the consequence of moral commitment, he grounds virtuous character in the self 's relation to the transcendent. In this he is much closer to Plato. His philosophy thereby offers an original understanding of how ethics can be grounded in religion, one that avoids the pitfalls plaguing a 5 Hans-Joachim Birkner, Schleiermachers Christliche Sittenlehre im Zusammenhang seines philosophisch-theologischen Systems, 37. 6 Gunter Scholz, Ethik und Hermeneutik: Schleiermachers Grundlegung des Geisteswissenshaften, 7. 7 Frederick Beiser, "Schleiermacher's Ethics," 79. 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 6 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 6 Transformation of the Self divine command theory of ethics, namely, heteronomy. The religious self does not act morally because a source external to it commands it; rather, the self in whom the God-consciousness is dominant is infused with the divine love. Because the motive for such a person to act morally is found in the depths of the self as informed by the divine love, heteronomy is avoided. By focusing on the transcendental conditions of subjectivity, Schleiermacher was able to argue that the self 's relation to the divine has a direct effect on the self 's relation to others. The self stands in relation to the whence of all existence through the immediate selfconsciousness, the point from which all self-consciousness originates. God can never be an object for consciousness. Representation of God as such an object is always "a corruption," "for anything that is outwardly given must be given as an object exposed to our counterinfluence, however slight this may be" (CF §4.4). Rather, God affects self-consciousness more in the way of a formal cause infusing a person with the divine love; this in turn has effects on how the individual relates to others. This partially grounds Schleiermacher's original claim that the relation to God and the relation to the neighbor are so intrinsically tied to one another that both are identical: "in this Kingdom of God . . . the establishment and maintenance of the fellowship of each individual with God, and the maintenance and direction of the fellowship of all members with one another are not separate achievements but the same" (CF §102). Schleiermacher's focus on the transcendental ground of character allowed him to combine the advantages of an ethic of virtue with an ethic that also affirms the significance of duty. Through his development of the idea that the immediate self-consciousness lies at the root of both spontaneity and receptivity, Schleiermacher offered a coherent account of how feelings and inclinations, and indeed the whole of a person's receptivity, could be morally transformed through reason. He thereby developed the underpinnings of an insightful moral psychology having the resources to deal with theoretical problems plaguing Kantian ethics. Whereas a good part of Kant's theory of virtue rests on the moral autocracy of practical reason over the inclinations, that is, moral strength of will over recalcitrant desires, Schleiermacher was able to account for how feelings and desires rooted in the conative side of human nature could play an important role in the ethical 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 7 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 Introduction 7 expression of the self. His transcendental turn in ethics also allowed him to affirm both genuine freedom and the unity of an agent's character throughout the process of moral transformation. One of Schleiermacher's most original contributions to ethics lies in his analysis of the importance of individuality for ethical life. Individuals are the primary building blocks of community; the building of community is the purpose of ethical life. But community can only be built through an appreciation of the fact that all human knowing and doing orients itself from a particular and finite standpoint. To be sure, the standpoint of the individual is one that must be continually transcended through human communication. But the new perspective achieved through communication itself still remains a finite and conditioned one that must itself be transcended through the building of ever widening circles of community. Schleiermacher's ethics begins with an understanding of individuals as particular, embodied beings having the capacity for communication. The foundations of his ethical system allow him to acknowledge the ultimate value of the individual qua individual, that is, the individual in all of his or her particularity. The individual is irreplaceable; his or her perspective is unique, non-transposable and indispensable to the ethical community. As such, the situation of each individual calls for a particular range of responses appropriate to it in all of its particularity. Furthermore, the body is the outward sign of the individual's perpective, the medium through which he or she communicates, and as such can become the organ of the spirit. Schleiermacher's insights are bolstered by a rigorous metaethical analysis of the nature of (a) the individual's relation to the divine or the absolute; (b) the character of self-consciousness and personal identity; (c) the relation of the self to others and its effect on selfconsciousness; and (d) the specific character of individuality and its relation to the formation of the ethical community. This metaethical analysis ultimately has as its goal Schleiermacher's attempt to understand the role of Christ as the founder of the Christian ethical community. His philosophical and ethical analysis has a theological goal: to make intelligible the life of the Christian community in Christ. Schleiermacher's ethics, however, has much to offer both Christians and non-Christians alike. For in his attempt to make intelligible the life of the Christian community in Christ, he also developed an ethics 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 8 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 8 Transformation of the Self and philosophy of religion whose starting point is an appreciation of the role that subjectivity and finitude plays in all human life and in the building up of communities. It took many years for Schleiermacher to arrive at the contours of his own system. Crucial to his philosophical development was his encounter with Spinoza, Kant, Leibniz, Jacobi, and Fichte. Kant's influence was the most decisive; even as he moved beyond him to develop his own original system, the ideas he took from Kant continued to shape his philosophical outlook. Any attempt to understand Schleiermacher's mature thought must take into account his encounter with these thinkers. The goal of the present study is to provide an exposition and analysis of the key metaphysical concepts undergirding Schleiermacher's mature ethical system. Because these ideas were developed over time and in relation to the philosophy of other figures, an exposition of Schleiermacher's philosophical ethics requires an engagement with Schleiermacher's philosophical development. As a result, two goals drive the organization of the present study: first, an exposition of Schleiermacher's metaphysics, especially as this metaphysics touches upon the problem of the nature of selfconsciousness and personal identity, and second, an analysis of the development of his thought. In the first chapter, "The Philosopher's Stone," I examine several fundamental philosophical problems regarding the conditions of the possibility of moral transformation preoccupying the early Schleiermacher, especially as he struggled to come to terms with Kant's practical philosophy. Included in this set of issues is the problem of transcendental freedom and how it relates to an agent's character, as well as the problem of the relation of the faculty of representation (knowing) to the faculty of desire (doing). Both questions have to do with how we are to conceive of the unity of the self throughout its changing states. The principle focus of the chapter is Schleiermacher's early essay On Freedom (1790–2), although I also look at Schleiermacher's notes on Kant's second Critique (1789), the third of his Dialogues on Freedom (1789), and his critical review of Kant's Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1799). In these early pieces Schleiermacher argued against Kant's idea of transcendental freedom and for a compatabilist view of freedom allowing us to affirm the continuity of an agent's character. However, he also 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 9 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 Introduction 9 takes note of the significant difficulties that such a compatibilist understanding of human freedom poses with regard to understanding the individual as the initiator of an action. Moreover, he struggles with an essential problem posed by Kant's fundamental division of the sources of human knowledge into spontaneity and receptivity. If the two are fundamentally distinct, how then is it possible to relate knowing to doing? Knowing has to do with our spontaneity, while doing is dependent on a moment of desire that spurs action, and desire, Kant believed (for good reasons), has to do with our passivity or receptivity. How, then, is it possible that desire can relate to our spontaneity (e.g., the moral law itself, which is generated by practical reason), so that we can recognize the worth of the moral law? Both Schleiermacher's concern with the problem of the continuity of an agent's character throughout change, as well as his early treatment of the problem of the relation of the faculty of representation (knowing) to the faculty of desire (doing) sheds light on his later, mature analysis of self-consciousness as grounded in a transcendental moment (the immediate self-consciousness). This transcendental moment not only makes possible the transition between knowing and doing, but also grounds the unity of a person's character. In the second and third chapters I provide an in-depth analysis of two of Schleiermacher's early pieces on Spinoza, Spinozism and the Short Presentation of the Spinozistic System, both from about 1793–4. The position put forward in these essays is fully consonant with Schleiermacher's earlier determinism. My second chapter, "The Principle of Individuation," examines the grounds for Schleiermacher's claim that there are no genuine individuals. Schleiermacher adopts Kant's distinction between noumena and phenomena; while individuals may appear at the phenomenal level, we cannot identify a noumenal principle of individuation guaranteeing the identity of a thing. An analysis of appearances reveals that each appearance fully depends for its existence on what is different and outside of it. As such, there are no real, noumenal agents; everything about the self is fully determined by what precedes its existence and lies outside of it. Yet all of these arguments are made in the context of his adoption of Kant's transcendental idealism. The adoption of this standpoint, I argue, proves decisive for Schleiermacher's later thought. 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 10 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 10 Transformation of the Self While Schleiermacher gives up his Spinozism, Kant's analysis of transcendental subjectivity remains a fundamental feature of his philosophical and theological system.8 It is this focus on the transcendental conditions of subjectivity that allow him to affirm later that the self is transcendentally free in relation to the world; the self is not a mere turnspit mechanistically determined by this-worldly forces. Rather, the immediate self-consciousness is the principle locus wherein the divine causality is immediately operative as a formal and in-forming cause in the deepest recesses of the self. My third chapter, "Personal Identity," continues the analysis of Spinozism. In it I focus on Schleiermacher's long discussion of personal identity. This discussion is extremely significant for Schleiermacher's later understanding of reflective self-consciousness. In it Schleiermacher reveals himself to be intimately acquainted with both Kant's transcendental deduction as well as Kant's chapter on the Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason. Most significantly, Schleiermacher argues, in agreement with Kant, that we have no access to a substantial noumenal self. Rather, identity of the subject is cognizable only in and through the synthesis of the manifold of intuition. The only reflective access we have to the self is through the products of its transcendental activity; the transcendental activity itself, however, cannot become an object for consciousness but is only given in immediacy. The philosophical position Schleiermacher develops here is key to an understanding of the position he develops in the Monologen, which is more representative of his mature thought. In "The World is the Mirror of the Self," I discuss Schleiermacher's Monologen in the context of his 1797–8 study of Leibniz's philosophy. It is during this period that Schleiermacher had his first direct contact with Leibniz, reading the original sources. Prior to this period his knowledge of Leibniz was second hand. Here we find a more positive reception of Leibniz's thought, one that remains decisive for Schleiermacher's mature system. I argue, however, that this positive reception of Leibniz is mediated through Schleiermacher's adoption of Kant's understanding of transcendental subjectivity. 8 On this crucial point my reading diverges from that of Julia Lamm in The Living God: Schleiermacher's Theological Appropriation of Spinoza, who does not recognize a fundamental change in Schleiermacher's later thought on this foundational issue. 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 11 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 Introduction 11 Schleiermacher also agrees with Kant, over against Leibniz, that individuals stand in genuine interaction with one another. It is here that we find Schleiermacher affirming both a qualified monadic individualism as well as transcendental freedom. Both affirmations go hand in hand. The actions of the self are not merely the products of a series of inter-worldly causes. Schleiermacher recognized, along with Leibniz and Kant, that the categories of substance and intelligible freedom mutually imply one another; something is a substance if its mode of action is grounded in its intrinsic properties. Furthermore, the self, in its fundamental transcendental unity and activity, is not an object that can stand in a causal relation to other objects in the world. Through the immediate self-consciousness the self stands in direct relation to the absolute; this is a relation unmediated by objects in the world given to consciousness. It is through this relation that the self is free in relation to the world. In the Monologen Schleiermacher presents his vision of the transcendentally free being who expresses himor herself into the world. The self has no reflexive access to itself aside from the way that it unites its representations and constructs its world; in a play on Leibniz's idea of the self as the mirror of the world, Schleiermacher affirms that "the world is spirit's most beautiful work, its self-created mirror." Here Schleiermacher is well on his way to one of the fundamental ideas behind the Dialectic and The Christian Faith, namely, that the rule through which a person connects representations and thereby represents the world to herself is seamlessly integrated with her desires, and hence with her actions. All are elements of the person's self-expression, itself the product of the transcendental activity of the self. The self knows itself through this expressive activity, which is received and reflected back to it through the activity of others. Chapter 5, "The Highest Good," begins an analysis of Schleiermacher's Notes on Ethics from 1805/06. This is an outline of Schleiermacher's mature ethical system. In this chapter I examine Schleiermacher's understanding of the highest good, the final goal of all ethical action. In the Notes on Ethics Schleiermacher describes the highest good as the "ensouling of human nature by reason." His exposition of the highest good reveals his eschatological conviction that the natural world will be perfected. The goal of moral action does not lie beyond this world; it is the perfection of this one. 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 12 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 12 Transformation of the Self Consequently, Schleiermacher's conception of the highest good stands in sharp contrast to Kant's. The first part of the chapter examines Schleiermacher's early critique of Kant's understanding of the highest good. This analysis sheds light on his later critique of Kant, especially as Schleiermacher developed it in his Outline of a Critique of Previous Ethical Theories (1803). Whereas a fundamental bifurcation between reason and nature pervades all of Kant's philosophy, Schleiermacher held that if human nature as it appears in this world is to be ensouled, it must be possible for the sensuously conditioned desires to be infused with ethical content. In Chapter 6 "Individual and Community," I outline Schleiermacher's vision of how human nature is to be ensouled through reason. Here I focus on Schleiermacher's positive conception and valuation of embodied, finite individuality as the fundamental building block of community. I provide an analysis of Schleiermacher's understanding of embodied individuality, the finite and perspectival character of all human knowledge that issues from such a standpoint, and the character of community, established through dialogue, as that through which finite standpoints can be enlarged to include the perspective of others and of other groups. For Schleiermacher it is through the establishment of community that human nature is ensouled. The way that a person's relation to one historical individual and the community founded by him can be the occasion for the transformation of the self through the mediation of the divine love is the subject of Chapter 7, "Transforming the Self through Christ." Schleiermacher's claim that it is through the work of Christ in transforming ethical outlooks that the God-consciousness is freed is certainly a theological one. Nevertheless, bolstering the claim are fundamental presuppositions regarding the nature of Christ's God-consciousness, as well as an understanding of how the self-consciousness of one individual can transform the self-consciousness of others, a view rooted in Schleiermacher's ethical theory. This chapter offers an examination of a claim central to Schleiermacher's Christian philosophy and theology, namely that Christ's activity is a person forming activity through which selves are ethically transformed. My last chapter, "Outpourings of the Inner Fire," explores the significance of Schleiermacher's understanding of the moral transformation of the self in regard to a contemporary problem in the 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 13 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 Introduction 13 philosophy of religion, namely, that of religious pluralism. Through an analysis of arguments found in On Religion (especially the third edition of 1821) as well as in the Christian Faith (second edition 1830–1), I first argue that Schleiermacher's theory of religion offers a generally coherent account of how it is possible that differing religious traditions are all based on the same experience of the absolute. A significant problem facing the religious pluralist, however, is how to distinguish between genuine and illusory religious experience. I show how Schleiermacher's theory offers clear criteria for making such judgments. Since the immediate self-consciousness, the locus of the self 's relation to the divine, also stands in relation to the moments of the sensuous self consciousness, it is the character of this relation between the immediate, transcendental self-consciousness and the moments of the sensuous self consciousness that determines how the world is understood, valued, and felt. Consequently for Schleiermacher the test of true piety lies not in the orthodox character of a person's beliefs, but in how the person views and values the world and others around him or her, and in the actions that issue from these ways of taking the world. While it may be impossible to achieve a universal theology, we may yet come to a consensus regarding a universal practice and the experience that attends it. Despite the importance of Schleiermacher's ethical theory, it has received little attention in the English-speaking world.9 Richard R. Niebuhr's Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion: A New Introduction10 called attention to Schleiermacher's understanding of the person-forming activity of Christ. However, the book is more concerned with Schleiermacher's theology and does not offer a systematic analysis of the relation of Schleiermacher's philosophy of religion and 9 This is partly due to the fact that many of Schleiermacher's most significant writings on ethics have only recently been translated into English, or are yet to be translated. His Outline of a Critique of Previous Ethical Systems remains untranslated. Furthermore, Brent Sockness has called attention to the "unfinished and initially unpublished character of Schleiermacher's mature work in the philosophical disciplines." He notes that "aside from the Academy addresses, which were printed in a relatively obscure organ of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, the Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre was the only major philosophical work of Schleiermacher to be published during his lifetime. Consequently, his initial philosophical impact occurred almost exclusively via his lectures at the university"; Sockness, "The Forgotten Moralist: Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Science of Spirit," 326. 10 Richard R. Niebuhr, Schleiermacher on Christ and Religion: A New Introduction. 01-Marina-Intr OUP191-Marina (Typeset by SPi, Delhi) page 14 of 14 March 6, 2008 11:39 14 Transformation of the Self theology to his ethics. Another book concerned with Schleiermacher's ethics is Albert Blackwell's Schleiermacher's Early Philosophy of Life: Determinism, Freedom, Phantasy.11 This book focuses on the early Schleiermacher, but does not offer an account of how his early ethics relate to his more mature views, or how these hook up with his philosophy and theology. Other English speaking treatments are limited to journal articles.12 My own book is intended as a corrective to this neglect; it is my hope that both philosophers and theologians will come to recognize the importance of Schleiermacher's oeuvre. 11 Albert Blackwell, Schleiermacher's Early Philosophy of Life: Determinism, Freedom, Phantasy. 12 Three of the most significant treatments in journal articles are by Brent Sockness and have appeared quite recently. These are: "Was Schleiermacher a Virtue Ethicist? Tugend and Bildung in the Early Ethical Writings" and "The Forgotten Moralist: Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Science of Spirit." In the latter essay Sockness details the reception of Schleiermacher's ethics in both Germany and in the English-speaking world. In his article "Schleiermacher and the Ethics of Authenticity," Sockness argues that Schleiermacher is not successful in fusing his transcendental turn with his ethics of authenticity. This study will show that Schleiermacher was in fact quite successful in uniting both themes, especially when his ethics are understood in relation to his philosophy of religion. An excellent description of the development of Schleiermacher's ethics is Frederick Beiser's "Schleiermacher's Ethics," in the Cambridge Companion to Schleiermacher. Other significant English language treatments of Schleiermacher's ethics appearing in journal articles include Julia Lamm, "The Early Philosophical Roots of Schleiermacher's Notion of Gefühl, 1788–1794," and a series of essays by John Crossley, including his "Schleiermacher's Christian Ethics in Relation to his Philosophical Ethics."