Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;This study examines Schleiermacher's Reden and Monologen against the background of a developing tradition of Bildung in Germany. The concept of Bildung is central to those two works, and forms a framework, within which the theory of religion is set. ;The first part provides a general analysis of the concept of Bildung, as found in a wide range of eighteenth century literature, and identifies three distinct ideals of personal culture. These are characterised as Pietist, classical and Romantic. According to the first, Bildung consists in the reattainment of the lost image of God . In the second, the ideal of divine perfection gives way to one of aesthetic perfection, requiring the individual to form or fashion himself inwardly in accordance with the classical principles of order, harmony, unity and proportion. In the emerging Romantic movement, man is understood as microcosm, the end of culture being to establish the closest possible inward correspondence between the self and the macrocosm. ;In the second part, Schleiermacher is seen to reinterpret these three strands, and to combine them in an original fashion. Three models of self-cultivation are found to operate in his own thought. Bildung is understood by him as the imposition of form on chaos; as an ascent from nature to reason, and as a 'return to nature' from the artificiality of modern civilised life. ;The third part concerns the role of the individual in the process of Bildung. He may be either passive, allowing himself to be shaped by an external power, typically God, or active and self-creative. Religion is seen to represent, for Schleiermacher, a capacity for 'being formed' . Genuine religious experience is that in which we surrender ourselves to the Universe, to be affected by her and moulded after her own image. At the same time, Schleiermacher also puts forward a theory of human creativity, believing us to be entrusted with a responsibility for spiritual and moral renewal. In this way, he presents a full and challenging vision of the human vocation, in which we are both creatures and creators