BIOGRAPHY:

• Born Nov. 21, 1768, Breslau, Silesia—died Feb. 12, 1834, Berlin 

• German theologian, preacher, and classical philologist, generally recognized as the founder of modern Protestant theology.

• His major work, Der christliche Glaube (1821–22; 2nd ed. 1831; The Christian Faith), is a systematic interpretation of Christian dogmatics.

• The lifeless and dogmatic narrowness of the Moravian seminary at Barby, which he attended from 1785 to 1787, conflicted with his increasingly critical and inquiring spirit. He left in 1787 with the reluctant permission of his father, who had at first harshly rebuked him for his worldliness and accused him of hypocrisy, and at Easter he matriculated at the University of Halle. (brittanica.com)

• Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) probably cannot be ranked as one of the greatest German philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (like Kant, Herder, Hegel, Marx, or Nietzsche). But he is certainly one of the most interesting of the second-tier philosophers of the period. (plato.stanford.edu)

• As can be seen even from this brief sketch of his life and works, a large proportion of Schleiermacher's career was taken up with the philosophy of religion and theology. However, from the secular standpoint of modern philosophy it is his work in such areas as hermeneutics (i.e. the theory of interpretation) and the theory of translation that is more interesting.