Erdmann had many readers, students and followers, and influenced many intellectuals of his time. Some of these include Niels Thulstrup, his student Albrecht Ritschl, his colleague Martin Kähler, and members the Hegelian school, such as Kuno Fischer, Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Ludwig Michelet. Søren Kierkegaard studied and was inspired in his early studies by Erdmann's works, in particular his "Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatic und Religionphilosophie" (Lectures on Faith and Knowledge as an Introduction to Dogma the Philosophy of Religion). Although Kierkegaard integrated much of Erdmann's work into his own, the only work in which Erdmann was cited by him was his dissertation "On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates".