Schleiermacher and Post-Metaphysical Thinking

Abstract

Schleiermacher rarely features in the now widespread discussion of the relevance of the German Idealist and Romantic traditions for contemporary philosophy because he has mainly been regarded as a theologian and theorist of textual interpretation. This essay shows that his most important philosophical work, the Dialectic, involves many ideas concerning truth and language which are generally regarded as belonging to what Habermas terms ‘post-metaphysical thinking’. Schleiermacher's views of truth and language are contrasted with those of Habermas and Rorty, and are seen as being of more than merely historical interest. His reflections on self-consciousness are shown to raise important questions for contemporary accounts of the relationship of the subject to language.