The Case of the Disappearing Discourse: Schleiermacher’s Fourth Speech and the Field of Religious Studies

Dole, Andrew

doi:10.1086/522276

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…3 In the North American context, as Andrew C. Dole notes, this interpretative tendency not only reflects a selective reading of the text itself but also the emerging politics and anxieties surrounding the study of religion in North American universities, specifically in the polemical concern to distance the discipline of religious studies from scholarship in theology (see Dole 2023Dole , 2008. 4 More recent scholarship on Schleiermacher has been united in its rejection of this view, highlighting the originality and complexity of his argument in the Speeches, as well as the work's unique structure in uniting an analysis of individual religious piety to the recognition of religion as a social phenomenon (see, for example, Sockness 2003;Barth 2004;Dole 2008;and cf. also Proudfoot's more nuanced discussion of Schleiermacher's position in Proudfoot 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Schleiermacher’s Speeches and the Modern Critique of Religion

Vander Schel

2024

Religions

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Friedrich Schleiermacher is often credited with playing a foundational role in the development of the modern concept of religion. His epoch-making Speeches on religion, published in 1799 amidst the widespread social and intellectual upheaval of the Sattelzeit, present a novel description of religious feeling and religious communication, which mark a turning away from the rationalistic treatments of religion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and which served as both inspiration and foil for scholars of religion throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This essay suggests a reading of Schleiermacher’s Speeches that is organized around two interrelated claims. First, the text does not proceed as speculative philosophical treatise aiming to establish an overarching theory of religion but as a critical dialogue that inquires into the distinctive particularity of religion and religious expression. Second, religious piety, as depicted in the Speeches, is not found in the isolated inwardness of individual experience but in coordinated tension with sociality, in communications of religious feeling that are bound together with a living apprehension of the world. On this account, religion for Schleiermacher, though rooted in feeling and self-consciousness, is nonetheless no private affair; it is realized within the developing complex of social and historical living.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Schleiermacher’s Speeches and the Modern Critique of Religion

Vander Schel

2024

Religions

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“…The feeling may be immediate; the expression of it will be mediated by the nature of experient (Schleiermacher, 1799(Schleiermacher, /2008 and his or her social, cultural, and historical baggage. Though Proudfoot seems to suggest otherwise, Schleiermacher was very much aware of the sociohistorical context surrounding religious experiences (Dole, 2008;Reynolds, 2002). The difference is that Schleiermacher did not think the experience itself is mediated.…”

Section: Proudfoot Versus Schleiermachermentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Neurotheology Explain Religion?

Vliegenthart

2011

Archive for the Psychology of Religion

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Neurotheology is a fast-growing field of research. Combining philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and religious studies, it takes a new approach to old questions on religion. What is religion and why do we have it? Neurotheologists focus on the search for the neural correlate of religious experiences. If we can trace religious experiences to specific parts of the brain, chances are we can reduce religion as such to that grey soggy matter as well. This article predicts neurotheology will not be able to locate the neural correlate of religious experiences. As we cannot decide phenomenally what makes an experience religious, neurologically we cannot find its correlate either. That is, if there are fixed neural correlates to begin with, because their existence is still a matter of debate. In addition, religious experiences seem to be a kind of experience, like emotional or relational experiences, making them indistinguishable from similar nonreligious experiences. Even if one manages to trace the neural correlate of religious experiences, neurotheology will still not be able to account for the rise of religion without resorting to theories from other disciplines. In the end, we do not know enough about consciousness and the way it relates to the brain to make conclusive claims about the search for religious states of consciousness. It seems, however, that even though neurotheology could provide fascinating insights in the workings of the religious brain, on its own, it will prove unable to explain religion fully.

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“…The development of Hegel’s criticisms into a distinct school of interpretation became evident as early as the work of his student Karl Rozenkranz, who in 1830–1831 published an extensive critique of Schleiermacher which, as he himself noted later, was received as ‘the work of a party‐reaction against Schleiermacher’ (Rozenkranz 1836). The hallmark of the Hegel school‐interpretation was the claim that Schleiermacher’s understanding of religion valorized the subjective in religion at the expense of the objective , making religion out to be a matter of feeling as opposed to knowledge and tied to the contingent and local characteristics of its practitioners, incapable of achieving the universality and trans‐historical validity which the theological followers of Hegel envisioned for Christianity (see Dole 2008).…”

Section: A Clouded Subjectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Schleiermacher on Religion

Dole

2010

Religion Compass

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Since Schleiermacher’s lifetime there have been three prominent ‘school‐interpretations’ of his understanding of religion, each of which has misrepresented him in important ways. I briefly describe the contents of the three traditions of Schleiermacher‐interpretation before turning to a reconstruction of his understanding of religion. Schleiermacher described religion as a complex cultural and social process, grounded in a central feature or ‘essence’ which determines its ideal character. Properly understood, his account of religion was neither an attempt to describe all religions as fundamentally the same nor an attempt to shield religion from scientific scrutiny. Rather, the account was calculated to serve the interests of the peaceful coexistence of religion and science by displaying religion as a phenomenon capable of adapting in the face of advancing knowledge concerning the natural order and concerning religion itself.

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The Case of the Disappearing Discourse: Schleiermacher’s Fourth Speech and the Field of Religious Studies

Cited by 4 publications

References 5 publications

Schleiermacher’s Speeches and the Modern Critique of Religion

Schleiermacher’s Speeches and the Modern Critique of Religion

Can Neurotheology Explain Religion?

Schleiermacher on Religion

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