Introduction to the Human Sciences: An Attempt to Lay a Foundation for the Study of Society and History

by Wilhelm Dilthey, Ramon J. Betanzos (Editor)

For some two centuries, scholars have wrestled with questions regarding the nature and logic of history as a discipline and, more broadly, with the entire complex of the "human sciences, " with include theology, philosophy, history, literature, the fine arts, and languages. The fundamental issue is whether the human sciences are a special class of studies with a specifically distinct object and method or whether they must be subsumed under the natural sciences.
German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey dedicated the bulk of his long career to there and related questions. His Introduction to the Human Sciences is a pioneering effort to elaborate a general theory of the human sciences, especially history, and to distinguish these sciences radically from the field of natural sciences. Though the Introduction was never completed, it remains one of the major statements of the topic. Together with other works by Dilthey, it has had a substantial influence on the recognition and human sciences as a fundamental division of human knowledge and on their separation from the natural sciences in origin, nature, and method.
As a contribution to the issue of the methodologies of the humanities and social sciences, the Introduction rightly claims a place. This is the first time the entire work is available in English.
In his introductory essay, translator Ramon J. Betanzos surveys Dilthey's life and thought and hails his efforts to create a foundational science for the particular human sciences, and at the same time, takes serious issue with Dilthey's historical/critical evaluation of metaphysics.

Genres: Philosophy, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Science, Psychology, Nonfiction

386 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1883

About the author

Wilhelm Dilthey (German: [ˈdɪltaɪ]) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held G. W. F. Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, working in a modern research university, Dilthey's research interests revolved around questions of scientific methodology, historical evidence and history's status as a science. He could be considered an empiricist, in contrast to the idealism prevalent in Germany at the time, but his account of what constitutes the empirical and experiential differs from British empiricism and positivism in its central epistemological and ontological assumptions, which are drawn from German literary and philosophical traditions.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excruciatingly precise, but not pedantic. One could read this as nothing more than a summary of the various stages passed through in the formalization of human thought, but there are other gems contained in the mass of material.

Advanced post-grad material I would say.

[J]

So boring. Dilthey's attempts to explain the key differences between the humanities and natural sciences are hopelessly bogged down by this messy, metaphysic/epistemic tone. The few times that his language does clear up, you realize that his aims are actually fairly mediocre, did you know that biology is different than human history in the way it approaches knowledge? If so, then you don't bother with intro. to the human sciences. This book further highlighted to me just how dull, how lacking so much of the writing is that tries to justify and reconcile the different disciplines.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXCELLENT FIRST VOLUME IN A COLLECTION OF DILTHEY'S WRITINGS

Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist and philosopher, who held Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. A collection of his writings about history is found in 'Pattern and meaning in History: Thoughts on History and Society by Dilthey.'

Translator and Editor Ramon Betanzos states in his very extensive and helpful Introduction to this book, "the sheer quantity and diversity of his enterprises are simply astounding. Here is a man who wrote many outstanding historical essays and much pioneering speculation about the theory of history itself... Dilthey's work is so varied and incomplete ... because he proceeded in an historical, fact-gathering, descriptive manner, but mainly because his overriding interest and concern was nothing less than human life itself." (Pg. 9) Later, he adds, "Dilthey saw his life's work as establishing a 'Critique of Historical Reason,' that is, a theoretical basis for understanding human life historically, a kind of 'logic of history.'" (Pg. 22)

Dilthey wrote, "If one speaks of philosophy of history, that can only mean historical research with a philosophical purpose and with philosophical means." (Pg. 131) He adds, "By philosophy of history I understand a theory which undertakes to discern the system of historical reality through a corresponding system of unified principles." (Pg. 132)

He suggests, "Because philosophy of history claims to express in its formula the whole essence of the course of world history, it wishes to formulate not only the causal structure but the meaning of the historical process as well, that is, its value and its goal, insofar as it recognizes such meaning alongside causal structure." (Pg. 134) He notes, "It can be shown with more lucid clarity for philosophy of history than for any other branch of metaphysics that its roots lie in religious experience and that it dries up and withers away if torn away from this matrix." (Pg. 135)

He observes, "The philosophy of Judaism developed first, that of paganism followed; the philosophy of Christianity victoriously superseded them both. For it bore within it a powerful historical reality, a reality which made contact in the life of the soul with the innermost core of every reality which had existed historically before it and experienced it in its inner harmony with itself.... Consequently, all earlier revelations were subordinated to this one as its preparatory stages. Thus God's essence... was now caught up in historical life. And so historical consciousness, taking the expression in its highest sense, first came into being." (Pg. 230)

He states, "History constitutes the ultimate and most complex problem of the human sciences. People now applied analyses contained in the natural system to the historical process. Because they accordingly pursued that process in various relatively independent spheres of life, the theological one-sidedness and crude dualism of the Middle Ages vanished. Because one sought motives of historical movement in humanity itself, the transcendent conception of history ended. A freer and more comprehensive way of thinking emerged. Through the efforts of human sciences in the eighteenth century a universal historical viewpoint, whose core was the idea of evolution, broke away from medieval metaphysics of history." (Pg. 305)

This is an excellent introduction to Dilthey's works.