Plato

Abstract

Abstract Schleiermacher changed the course of modern Plato studies and thus changed how we understood Plato. His monumental Platons Werke (Plato’s Works), 1804–1828, which included translation of almost the entire Platonic corpus as well as Introductions to the dialogues, influenced Plato scholars throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. What is less known is the degree to which Plato’s philosophy influenced Schleiermacher’s own thought. The influence on his hermeneutics and his theory of translation is perhaps clearest. Yet, once we understand how Schleiermacher interpreted Plato—that is, once we understand Schleiermacher’s Plato—we will recognize just how profoundly Platonic Schleiermacher’s early ethics, his Christmas Dialogue, Dialectic, and his On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despiser truly are.