Dilthey

Hermeneutic philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey thought that by examining history, we would be better able to understand people from the past. One objection could be that his theory implies that by knowing the external events at play in a person’s life, one would be able to understand that person and what they have written. I argue that Dilthey’s account works as long as one thinks of understanding as “seeing where one is coming from” rather than as “claiming to know how one feels.” Dilthey rejected Friedrich Schleiermacher’s idea that humans understand each other by tapping into an overarching world-Spirit. Instead of believing in a mystic, unifying cosmic whole, Dilthey theorized that humans are connected by humanity’s history (Zimmerman 32).

If understanding is thought of as “seeing where one is coming from,” Dilthey’s call to study history is a worthwhile one. Familiarity with a certain historical setting, enriched by the study of personal accounts, will yield greater understanding of historical figures of that time. We can see what factors influenced a particular person’s actions, even though we cannot access their qualia or clearly know why they ultimately made the choices they made. Without the obligation to feel as one felt during a particular time period, we can simply come to greater sympathy for and understanding of people of the past.

Dilthey’s theory that a study of history will yield greater understanding is only problematic if understanding is thought to be a sort of “claim to know how it feels to be.” No, we will never be able to recreate someone’s subjective experience. We can’t understand them in the sense that we know how it feels to be them- or how it would feel to live in their time- but we can understand them in the sense that we can fit them into a coherent