WILHELM DILTHEY'S HERMENEUTIC CONCEPTION

Contemporary discussions about philosophical hermeneutics are largely inspired by the conception of Wilhelm Dilthey, who is viewed as the founder of philosophical hermeneutics. Although more recent research has convincingly shown that general hermeneutics was systematically developed much earlier, as hermeneutica universalis – above all in the work of Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–7) – Dilthey's work remains the source of information and, in part, of legitimation for contemporary hermeneutic reflections.

Dilthey's goal was to work out the philosophical foundations of the human sciences, and to do so historically and systematically. His plan was to write six books, which would be divided into two volumes. This remained a torso, because Dilthey published only the first volume, entitled Introduction to the Human Sciences (1883). This volume contains above all a historical account, which was to set the stage for the epistemological foundation planned for the other volume. Nevertheless, the first two books of the introduction also contain systematic thoughts; besides, already in Dilthey's lifetime, his systematic work, The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences (1910), was published, which according to the publisher, Groethuysen, was to be integrated into the second volume of the planned introduction to the human sciences (GS VII, IX). These two books, which were published by Dilthey himself, as well as his famous article “The Rise of Hermeneutics” (1900) and a few other smaller works, will serve as the foundation for my discussion of his hermeneutic conception.