description Wilhelm Dilthey Overview
Wilhelm Dilthey was a 19th-century German philosopher who founded the philosophy of the human sciences, arguing that the humanities require a distinct interpretive methodology he called Verstehen (understanding).
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What does Verstehen mean in Dilthey's philosophy?
Verstehen means interpretive understanding of human life, expression, and historical meaning. Dilthey contrasted it with the causal explanation commonly pursued by the natural sciences.
How did Dilthey distinguish the human sciences from natural science?
Natural science explains observable processes through causal patterns, while the human sciences interpret expressions created and lived by people. History, literature, psychology, and social life therefore require attention to meaning as well as external causes.
What is Erlebnis in Dilthey's work?
Erlebnis is usually translated as lived experience, meaning experience as it is undergone from within. Dilthey connected lived experience with expression and understanding in his account of historical knowledge.
Did Dilthey invent hermeneutics?
No, interpretation had a long history, and Friedrich Schleiermacher had already developed a broad theory of hermeneutics. Dilthey extended that tradition into a foundation for the human sciences in works culminating around The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences.
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