Abstract

This dissertation presents a conceptual analysis of the intention and argumentative structure of the general and transcendental parts of Schleiermacher's Dialektik, where Schleiermacher seeks the first principle of knowing as the necessary condition of both being in and resolving dispute. The dissertation argues that, although Schleiermacher does not name it as such, the first principle is properly formulated as the correlation of the ideas of God and world. ;The thesis of the dissertation has two parts. The first part concerns the meaning of the principle; the second part concerns the sense in which one knows and does not know the principle. The dissertation claims, first, that the formulation of the principle must be conceived both as highest subjective principle of thinking and as objective conditioning ground in being itself. This is the sense in which Schleiermacher uses the terms "transcendent" and "transcendental" in describing the principle. The formula articulates the identity and difference of the subjective and objective principles. ;The dissertation claims, second, that one both knows and does not know the first principle. One knows the first principle as subjective principle of thinking unproblematically, for it is present to thinking as the first rule of thinking. Are we warranted, however, to claim that one knows the being of this principle as objective conditioning ground? I argue that in Schleiermacher's view, analysis of the being of thinking, as given in an analysis of "immediate self-consciousness" leads inevitably to positing the absolute unity of thinking and being as conditioning ground. Schleiermacher's conclusion is that we know the principle formally in its subjective and objective aspects, and that this very formal knowing provides the criterion by which one knows that no finite formulation of the principle is descriptively adequate to the being of the conditioning ground. That is, one knows that the principle of all ideality and reality is the identity of identity and difference. One does not know, however, the proper identification of this identity