Hegel on Schleiermacher and Postmodernity

Abstract

Hegel’s critique of Schleiermacher involves Hegel’s attempt to resolve, through an historical account, what was a deeply felt and determining dilemma of the time: how to reconcile Enlightenment reason with dogmatic faith. This account sees Schleiermacher’s theology of feeling as the contemporary, dangerous manifestation of both currents, in their unreconciled, non-systematic and indeed, anti-systematic forms. Hegel’s grasp of this contemporary culture of feeling, with its contradictory roots in empiricism and skepticism, can be understood as a critique of the postmodern world, as it is portrayed in writers such as F. Lyotard, J. Baudrillard and G. Lipovetsky.