Wilhelm Dilthey

Wilhelm Dilthey (German pronunciation: /ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈdɪltaɪ/; Wiesbaden- Biebrich, November 19, 1833-Six am Schlern, October 1, 1911) was a German philosopher, historian, sociologist, psychologist and hermeneut. Dilthey studied in Heidelberg and Berlin. As a professor of philosophy at the universities of Basel, Kiel, Breslau (currently Wrocław, Poland, a city puristically called "Wrocław" in Spanish) and Berlin, he combated the dominance exercised in the field of knowledge by the sciences. 'objective' naturals; He intended to establish a 'subjective' science of the humanities (Geisteswissenschaften or & # 34; Sciences of the Spirit & # 34;) as a discipline methodologically differentiated from the & # 34; Sciences of Nature & # 34;. According to Dilthey, these subjective human studies (including law, religion, art, and history) should focus on a “human-social-historical reality.” He stated that the study of the human sciences involves the interaction of personal experience, the reflective understanding of experience, and an expression of the spirit in gestures, words, and art. Dilthey reasoned that all knowledge must be analyzed in the light of history; Without this perspective, knowledge and understanding can only be partial. Life is a mysterious plot of chance, destiny and character is a thought considered by José Ortega y Gasset in his essay on Dilthey and the idea of life.

Life and work

Wilhelm Dilthey was born on November 19, 1833 in Biebrich am Rhein. He was the son of a Protestant pastor, and out of fidelity to his father, more than out of religious vocation, he initially chose to study theology. Even so, already at this time his true interest was directed towards historical studies, philology and, especially, philosophy. His passion for this, Dilthey would confess, was born when he read the & # 34; Logic & # 34; by Immanuel Kant.

He began his studies at the University of Heidelberg where he was able to have a first approach to neo-Kantianism through the lessons of Kuno Fischer, the great precursor of neo-Kantianism. After three semesters in Heidelberg he moved to Berlin, the year was 1853. In Berlin he made contact with great figures of historical science of the time and of philology flourishing in Germany. Among the great historians that he was able to meet, it is worth highlighting: Ranke, Ritter and Mommsen and he met figures of the stature of Grimm and Boeckh. In this environment he finished his studies in 1856 and began a brief period of teaching in secondary education, after which he will dedicate himself entirely to research.

He began researching the history of the Church and it was at this stage that he met the work of an author who would mark the rest of his theoretical production, this was the theologian and philosopher Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Thus was born the project to publish a detailed biography of Schleiermacher, the first volume of which would appear in 1870 with the title "Life of Schleiermacher". In this way Dilthey becomes one of the thinkers of the hermeneutic circle.

In his first years dedicated to research he made great progress academics, in 1866 he was called to Basel to occupy a professorship, two years later, in 1868, he went to Kiel at whose university he would also teach; Later, in 1871, he moved to Breslau until in 1882 he saw his aspirations fulfilled by obtaining a professorship in Berlin where he would remain until his death. It is in Berlin where his first publications begin to come to light. In 1883 he published the first volume of the "Introduction to the Sciences of the Spirit", whose announced second part would never see the light; In 1890 he published a study titled About the origin and legitimacy of our belief in the external world ; In 1894 he saw the light of 'Ideas about a descriptive and analytical psychology', a work that received harsh criticism from experimental psychology. After this work, and perhaps motivated by criticism, Dilthey opted for a long period without publishing any work. It would not be until 1905 that another of his works saw the light, this one titled The History of Young Hegel. At this stage Dilthey launched the edition of Leibniz's complete works. In 1906 Dilthey published the work that gave him fame and public resonance, it is titled Experience and Poetry, where he compiles studies carried out by him about Lessing, Goethe, Novalis and Hölderlin. Following in the wake of his success, he published in 1907 the work titled "The Essence of Philosophy." In 1910 he published The structuring of the historical world , and a year later, in 1911 The types of the conception of the world and its constitution in metaphysical systems .

While spending his vacation in Seis, in Tyrol, he died suddenly, leaving the second volume of the work Life of Scheleiermacher unfinished.

Contributions to hermeneutical theory

Dilthey began the study of hermeneutics inspired by the works of Friedrich Schleiermacher, an author already forgotten at that time and who was part of the German romantic movement. Dilthey can be considered a type of empiricist, however, his empirical works are not exactly the same as those of the English empiricists with regard to epistemological assumptions. The hermeneutic school inspired by German romanticism always placed great emphasis on the fact that the interpreter can use his or her ability to understand and penetrate in combination with the cultural and historical context of the text being addressed in order to obtain the original meaning of the text.

Wilhelm Dilthey never stopped aspiring to the possibility of an objective and universally valid interpretation of the texts, this claim was discarded long after his death (especially after the 1950s) in the main hermeneutical currents after the studies of Hans-Georg Gadamer.

Wilhelm Dilthey was very interested in what today we could call sociology. He made harsh objections to the evolutionary assumptions of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, which considered that the evolution of society towards better structures was inevitable, a point that Dilthey did not share. Despite this, Dilthey shared some ideas with Auguste Comte, for example, both can be considered positivists although with some differences.

Dilthey applied the name that Friedrich Schleiermacher had given to the process of hermeneutical research that he had founded and also called this process the hermeneutic circle. This method was considered by Dilthey crucial to providing the necessary foundation for the Geisteswissenschaften ("sciences of the spirit"). That the process is circular refers to the interdependence (circular and not immediate) of meaning between the whole and its parts, this is key in the hermeneutic circle.

Weltanschauungen

Dilthey develops a typology of the three basic Weltanschauungen or worldviews, which he considers "typical" (comparable to Max Weber's notion of "ideal types") and the contradictory ways of conceiving man's relationship with nature.

• In naturalism, represented by epicures of all time and place: man sees himself as determined by nature.
• In the idealism of freedom (or subjective idealism), Athenian creation and represented by Friedrich Schiller and Immanuel Kant: man is aware of his separation from nature by his free will.
• In objective idealism, represented by G. W. F. Hegel, Baruch Spinoza and Giordano Bruno: man is aware of his harmony with nature.

This approach has influenced Karl Jaspers in his work Psychology of Worldviews and Rudolf Steiner.

Regarding the period of transition between Antiquity and the modern world, called by Dilthey "theological-metaphysical stage" of modern peoples (would include a good part of the Middle Ages: c. 500-c. 1350), would be based on a rational academic ontology characterized by faith, the authority of the Church and an uncritical ("childish") belief in the written tradition. Scholasticism was in charge of carrying out, during this phase, a "sterile work of analysis, elaboration and alambicting" on the transcendent concepts that had been invented in the previous period (Late Antiquity) evading the control of experience.

Distinction between sciences

Wilhelm Dilthey openly rejected the epistemological model of the Naturwissenschaften, "natural sciences", that is, the scientific method typical of the natural sciences. This led him to propose the separate development of a model for the "Geisteswissenschaften", "human sciences" or "sciences of the spirit", p. e.g., philosophy, psychology, history, philology, sociology, etc. His argument centered around the idea that the natural sciences explain phenomena in terms of cause and effect; On the contrary, in the human sciences the fundamental mechanism to understand phenomena is not the principle of cause and effect but the use of human understanding and penetration. In the social sciences he defended, like Max Weber, the use of two methods of knowledge. The principles of the spiritual sciences had to be used especially in the interpretation of texts, both ancient texts, religious and legal works, etc. as philosophical essays.

Some publications

Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Works was published by Princeton University Press under the editing of Rudolf A. Makkreel & Frithjof Rodi.

Vols. published

• I: Introduction to the Human Sciences
• II: Understanding the Human World: Selected Works of Wilhelm Dilthey (2010) 312 pages.
• III: The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences
• IV: Hermeneutics and the Study of History
• V: Poetry and Experience

Wilhelm Dilthey, published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht:

• 1: Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften
• 2: Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen seit Renaissance und Reformation
• 3: Studien zur Geschichte des deutschen Geistes
• 4: Die Jugendgeschichte Hegels und andere Abhandlungen zur Geschichte des Deutschen Idealismus
• 5: Die geistige Welt
• 6: Die geistige Welt
• 7: Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften
• 8: Weltanschauungslehre
• 9: Pädagogik
• 10: System der Ethik
• 11: Vom Aufgang des geschichtlichen Bewußtseins
• 12: Zur preußischen Geschichte
• 13: Leben Schleiermachers. Erster Band
• 14: Leben Schleiermachers. Zweiter Band
• 15: Zur Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts
• 16: Zur Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts
• 17: Zur Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts
• 18: Die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte
• 19: Grundlegung der Wissenschaften vom Menschen, der Gesellschaft und der Geschichte
• 20: Logik und System der philosophischen Wissenschaften
• 21: Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft
• 22: Psychologie als Erfahrungswissenschaft
• 23: Allgemeine Geschichte der Philosophie
• 24: Logik und Wert
• 25: Dichter als Seher der Menschheit
• 26: Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung

The translation into Spanish of Dilthey's most important works was carried out by the exiled Basque philosopher and writer Eugenio Ímaz (1900-1951). In this work he had the help of his wife Hilde Janhnke.