Wilhelm Dilthey, (born Nov. 19, 1833, Biebrich, Nassau, Ger.—died Oct. 1, 1911, Seis am Schlern, South Tirol, Austria-Hungary), German philosopher of history. Opposed to contemporary efforts to transform the methodology of the humanities and the social sciences on the model of natural science, Dilthey tried to establish these fields as interpretive sciences in their own right. Their subject matter, according to him, is the human mind, not as it is enjoyed in immediate experience nor as it is analyzed in psychological theory, but as it manifests or “objectifies” itself in languages and literatures, actions, and institutions. Dilthey emphasized that the essence of human beings cannot be grasped by introspection but only from a knowledge of all of history; this understanding, however, can never be final because history itself never is. His major work is Introduction to Human Science (1883); two influential essays are “Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytical Psychology” (1894) and “The Structure of the Historical World in the Human Sciences” (1910).
Wilhelm Dilthey Article
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humanities Summary
Humanities, those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with human beings and their culture or with analytic and critical methods of inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself. As a group of educational disciplines,
social science Summary
Social science, any branch of academic study or science that deals with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects. Usually included within the social sciences are cultural (or social) anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics. The discipline of historiography is
philosophy of history Summary
Philosophy of history, the study either of the historical process and its development or of the methods used by historians to understand their material. The term history may be employed in two quite different senses: it may mean (1) the events and actions that together make up the human past, or