Schleiermacher and the Philosophy of Culture

Abstract Against the background of prominent cultural philosophical drafts of the early twentieth century (Simmel, Cassirer), this chapter shows why Schleiermacher’s contributions to a philosophy of culture still deserve attention today. Schleiermacher’s Philosophical Ethics in particular is an interesting and still sustainable cultural-philosophical draft. The profiling of Schleiermacher’s philosophy of culture in the context of his time shows the comparison with Rousseau, Kant, Herder, and Hegel. The singularity of Schleiermacher’s cultural philosophy lies in the fact that it is complemented by a cultural theology that presents the practice of a good life, supported by the Christian spirit, within modern culture. At the end, a critical discussion of this statement highlights the impulses Schleiermacher still gives to both a critical diagnosis and a practical treatment of the crisis of modern culture.