Wilhelm Dilthey

What man is, only his history tells.

Summary

Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 - 1911) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, student of Hermeneutics, and philosopher, who made important contributions to a methodology of human science.

His idea of Erlibnis (Inner or Lived Experience) became the concept of the Vivencia (see also The Vivencia).

Ideas

• Founder of philosophical Hermeneutics,
• Erlibnis - literally "what has been lived through" - Lived Experience,
• Verstehen - literally "understanding",
• The concepts of Erlebnis and Verstehen played a crucial role in Dilthey's endeavors to liberate the methodology of human science from that of natural science.
• He opposed the idea that the human science should emulate the methodology of the natural science, and tried to establish the humanities as sciences in their own right.
• He aimed to find the philosophical foundations for human science - history, philosophy, religion, psychology, art, literature, law, politics and economics.
• The purpose of human science is not necessarily to explain human behavior, but to understand it.

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics can be thought of as the art of interpretation:

• The ability to understand things from somebody else's point of view,
• To appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook,
• Applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts.

Erlebnis (Lived Experience)

Erlebnis is connected with the process of self-understanding:

• By itself, Erlebnis does not provide self-understanding,
• The world is not simply observed - our relationship to the world and its meaning is socially mediated,
• Social phenomenon must be understood as they are experienced or made meaningful by human beings within specific social contexts,
• Self-understanding is only obtained when the self relates to itself as it relates to others,
• Even so Erlebnis remains the psychological source the experiential potential that is articulated and conceptualized in understanding.

Verstehen (Understanding)

Verstehen is connected with our understanding of others:

• Understanding requires not just rationality, but also intuition, creativity, and imagination,
• Consciousness plays an active role in understanding - humans are active meaning makers,
• Humans have the ability to re-live the experience of another through socio-historical analysis and through the use of imagination,
• Others can only be understood by imagining oneself in their position, although this imagining always takes place within the limits set by one's own time and culture,
• This can be contrasted with the external objectification third-person perspective of explanation in natural science and of social structures in sociology.