Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Works, Volume III: The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences

Wilhelm Dilthey

Published by Princeton University Press 2002

Wilhelm Dilthey: Selected Works, Volume III

The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences

Wilhelm Dilthey
Edited by: Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400844487

Overview
Contents

About this book

This volume provides Dilthey's most mature and best formulation of his Critique of Historical Reason. It begins with three "Studies Toward the Foundation of the Human Sciences," in which Dilthey refashions Husserlian concepts to describe the basic structures of consciousness relevant to historical understanding.

The volume next presents the major 1910 work The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences. Here Dilthey considers the degree to which carriers of history--individuals, cultures, institutions, and communities--can be articulated as productive systems capable of generating value and meaning and of realizing purposes. Hegel's idea of objective spirit is reconceived in a more empirical form to designate the medium of commonality in which historical beings are immersed. Any universal claims about history need to be framed within the specific productive systems analyzed by the various human sciences. Dilthey's drafts for the Continuation of the Formation contain extensive discussions of the categories most important for our knowledge of historical life: meaning, value, purpose, time, and development. He also examines the contributions of autobiography to historical understanding and of biography to scientific history.

The finest summary of Dilthey's views on hermeneutics can be found in "The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Manifestations of Life." Here, Dilthey differentiates understanding relative to three kinds of manifestations of life. After giving his analysis of elementary understanding, he examines the role of induction in higher understanding and interpretation, and the relevance of transposition and re-experiencing for grasping individuality.

Author / Editor information

Rudolf A. Makkreel is Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Emory University and the author of Dilthey, Philosopher of the Human Studies (Princeton). Frithjof Rodi is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Ruhr-Universität, Bochum and one of the editors of Dilthey's Gesammelte Schriften.

Reviews

"The first complete English translation of Wilhelm Dilthey's most important mature work . . . is to be greatly welcomed. This excellent translation conveys the subtlety and richness of Dilthey's German. Its innovative translations of key terms will provide renewed stimulus to interpreting Dilthey's works."---Eric Sean Nelson, Journal of the History of Philosophy

"The third volume of his Selected Works affords us the opportunity to consider anew whether, post existentialist and post-humanist avant l'heure, Dilthey and his system-theoretic vitalism may have done Heidegger's own radicalism one better."---James D. Faubion, Review of Metaphysics

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
PREFACE TO ALL VOLUMES Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
EDITORIAL NOTE TO VOLUME III Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME III Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART I. STUDIES TOWARD THE FOUNDATION OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES
First Study. THE PSYCHIC STRUCTURAL NEXUS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Second Study. THE STRUCTURAL NEXUS OF KNOWLEDGE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Third Study. THE DELIMITATION OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES (THIRD DRAFT) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
PART II. THE FORMATION OF THE HISTORICAL WORLD IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
PART III. PLAN FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THE FORMATION OF THE HISTORICAL WORLD IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
PART IV. APPENDIX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	313
GLOSSARY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	369
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	383