Abstract
Theodore Vial, Schleiermacher: A Guide for the Perplexed, Bloomsbury: London, 2013; 160 pp.: 9780567520098, £45.00/$80.00 (hbk), 9780567415981, £14.99/$24.95 (pbk)
Writing a brief and accessible introduction to a figure like Friedrich Schleiermacher is a daunting task. Not only was he a prolific author. He arguably made contributions that forever changed more than one academic discipline. Given that, how is one to sort through his monumental achievements and present a general reader or a beginning student a portrait and a beginning understanding of this important nineteenth-century thinker? Theodore Vial has performed this difficult feat with finesse. The book provides both biographical information and detailed readings of particular texts. Vial faults many earlier introductions to Schleiermacher for focusing almost solely on his theology, and he pledges in his introduction to put Schleiermacher's work in a broader context. The book does not disappoint on this count.
Chapter 1 looks at the world in which Schleiermacher was born and grew up. Here there is a very succinct, yet rich, timeline of Schleiermacher's life. The second chapter interestingly sets Schleiermacher in the context of the intellectual response to Immanuel Kant's epistemology. Borrowing from Charles Taylor, Vial emphasizes the way in which Schleiermacher and his generation were grappling with a set of problems bequeathed to them by Kant. He reads Schleiermacher as having accepted parts of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (notably the meaning of ‘intuition’ and the inaccessibility to reason of the noumenal), but as having likewise significantly departed from Kant in his Lectures on Dialectic. Vial provides a helpful chart of Schleiermacher's complex theory of knowledge outlined in that work, and shows the various ways in which he departs from Kant – granting less objectivity to concepts, yet almost paradoxically seeming to hold hope for a greater approach of knowing to being. The helpful discussion of the Dialectic is one of the best parts of this book.
In Chapter 3, Vial explores Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics. This is one of the fields where he is often credited as a pioneer, yet where he is often also these days dismissed as very misguided. In Vial's treatment of this material there are two particularly helpful things. First, he takes up the most common criticisms of Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics and shows how a close reading with the better texts that are now available to us through the critical edition might answer them. And second, he explores the way in which Schleiermacher's emphasis on the inescapably linguistic nature of humanity may lie at the root of the so-called ‘expressivist self’ of the modern and post modern period.
In dealing with Schleiermacher's most familiar texts, the Speeches and The Christian Faith, Vial makes judicious choices. He focuses mainly on the second and fourth speech and offers some very helpful guidance for beginners about understanding what Schleiermacher really meant by ‘intuiting the universe’. He also argues against what he calls the ‘standard reading’ (that allowed both reductionists and many theologians to dismiss this text) in favour of a better reading, made possible by critical texts and a broader context. In the dogmatics, he keeps his focus where it should be – on Christology, sin and redemption.
The final chapter may be surprising to many English-speaking readers because it is not dealt with in sources easily accessible to them (except some of Vial's own earlier works). This chapter looks at Schleiermacher the political activist. Not only did he preach some political sermons but also edited a political newspaper for a time, advocated for a more developed and engaged citizenry, and promoted the separation of Church and State. Vial argues that it is important to include this part of Schleiermacher's activity in an introduction because his theories are often said to lead to quietism or passive disengagement. His own life is the best proof that this was not true.
This is a fine book and an excellent place to begin to get to know the work of Schleiermacher. It does have a point of view – it would be hard to write about most of Schleiermacher's major works without taking a stand on controversial questions. But Vial is evenhanded and gives the evidence for the position he takes. Highly recommended.