Sarah Schmidt’s systematic interpretation of Schleiermacher’s philosophical work focuses on his concept of mutual determination . This is where his answer is to be found to the question of a possible orientation in a world of the finite. This particular focus underlines Schleiermacher'srelevance and proves to be particularly fruitful in emphasising the unity of his philosophical oeuvre, which has received little attention to date. The occupation with Schleiermacher’s philosophy of mutual determination proceeds in four systematic steps, each of which turns to a particular text corpus - the early Berlin writings, the lectures on dialectics, the lectures on hermeneutics and critique, and finally the lectures on philosophical ethics.