Abstract

Having struggled with the tensions between rationalism and Pietism, and especially with Kant's dualism, the young Friedrich Schleiermacher sought to place all of human understanding and emotion within the lived experience. This "higher realism," which Schleiermacher understood as informing both religious experience and the development of self concept and community, was itself framed by a series of his own experiences. The "beauty of human fellowship" which he discovered with the Dohna von Schlobitten family provided the primary impetus for this new position and added a celebratory character to his philosophy, becoming the most important personal example for the development of his new social philosophy. ;This study considers how his subsequent experiences and intellectual milieu continued to influence this "higher realism." Starting with the cultural, social and economic factors which framed the Berlin salon culture, the dissertation moves from general social factors to the individual people within the extended sociological groupings. To this end it traces the intellectual development of Dorothea Veit-Schlegel, Henriette Herz and Friedrich Schlegel, concentrating on how each came to understand the relationship between cognition, identity, community and gender and how this circle of friends formed a dialogue around these issues. The study then examines how this discussion continued in three published works: Schleiermacher's Uber die Religion, Schlegel's Lucinde, and Dorothea's Florentin; concluding with a consideration of these issues within Schleiermacher's Vertraute Briefe uber Friedrich Schlegels Lucinde. In this work Schleiermacher asserts that the human virtue of Schaamhaftigkeit, which he defines as "respect for the frame of mind of another," is central for the operation of human community as well as vital for balanced individual development--just as it is central to one's spiritual awareness. This virtue develops out of the individual's awareness of his or her own limitations and situatedness--that is out of an acceptance of the "embodied self." Since Schleiermacher's Vertraute Briefe has not previously been translated into English, large portions of the translated text are included