Self-Reflection, Interpretation, and Historical Life in Dilthey
Résumé
Diverging from the dominant Neo-Kantian and Positivist epistemologies of his era, Dilthey's works engaged and articulated the import of the historical for reflection (Besinnung) and knowledge (Wissen). Pursuing a double strategy, Dilthey's writings enact historical research with a philosophical intent while interpreting philosophy in relation to its historical referential contexts. Philosophy is not historical in being lost in the plural, the particular, the relative, and the contingent, as Dilthey's critics contend, but by experientially and self-reflectively encountering and interpreting the present through its lived expressions and objectifications and in its practical interests and needs. Philosophy is both historical and systematic for Dilthey in being informed by and responding to its times, and the questions that concern a generation, and by reflectively proceeding from empirical and factical conditions to concepts.