The Early Philosophical Roots of Schleiermacher's Notion of Gefühl, 1788–1794
No single term has been so misunderstood or so debated in the history of Schleiermacher interpretation as Gefühl (“feeling”). The intensity of the controversy surrounding this term is testimony to the critical role it plays in Schleiermacher's entire theological program. Indeed, as evident in h...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1994
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| In: |
Harvard theological review
Year: 1994, Volume: 87, Issue: 1, Pages: 67-105 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | No single term has been so misunderstood or so debated in the history of Schleiermacher interpretation as Gefühl (“feeling”). The intensity of the controversy surrounding this term is testimony to the critical role it plays in Schleiermacher's entire theological program. Indeed, as evident in his magnum opus The Christian Faith (1830/1831), where Gefühl attains its final formulation as “the feeling of absolute dependence” (das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl), few other terms play as important a role in his account of religious experience and his doctrine of God. Not only is Schleiermacher's theological system at stake, but also the foundations of modern theology itself. Ludwig Feuerbach's assessment of the consequences of emphasizing Gefühl was unequivocal; most critics of Schleiermacher, Karl Barth foremost among them, have followed Feuerbach's pattern of interpretation:If, for example, feeling is the essential organ of religion, the nature of God is nothing else than an expression of the nature of feeling.…But the object of religious feeling is become a matter of indifference, only because when once feeling has been pronounced to be the subjective essence of religion, it in fact is also the objective essence of religion,…feeling is pronounced to be religious, simply because it is feeling. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4517 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0017816000031643 |