The Distinction Between The Natural Sciences and The Human Sciences
A lifelong concern was to establish a proper theoretical and methodological foundation for the "human sciences" (e.g. history, law, literary criticism), distinct from, but equally "scientific" as, the "natural sciences" (e.g. physics, chemistry). He suggested that all human experience divides naturally into two parts: that of the surrounding natural world, in which "objective necessity" rules, and that of inner experience, characterized by "sovereignty of the will, responsibility for actions, a capacity to subject everything to thinking and to resist everything within the fortress of freedom of his/her own person".
Dilthey strongly rejected using a model formed exclusively from the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften), and instead proposed developing a separate model for the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). His argument centered around the idea that in the natural sciences we seek to explain phenomena in terms of cause and effect, or the general and the particular; in contrast, in the human sciences, we seek to understand in terms of the relations of the part and the whole. In the social sciences we may also combine the two approaches, a point stressed by German sociologist Max Weber. His principles, a general theory of understanding or comprehension (Verstehen) could, he asserted, be applied to all manner of interpretation ranging from ancient texts to art work, religious works, and even law. His interpretation of different theories of aesthetics in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries was preliminary to his speculations concerning the form aesthetic theory would take in the twentieth century.
Both the natural and human sciences originate in the context or "nexus of life" (Lebenszusammenhang), a concept which influenced the phenomenological account of the lifeworld (Lebenswelt), but are differentiated in how they relate to their life-context. Whereas the natural sciences abstract away from it, it becomes the primary object of inquiry in the human sciences.
Dilthey defended his use of the term Geisteswissenschaft (literally, "spiritual science") by pointing out that other terms such as "social science" and "cultural sciences" are equally one-sided and that the human spirit is the central phenomenon from which all others are derived and analyzable. For Dilthey, like Hegel, "spirit" (Geist) has a cultural rather than a social meaning. It is not an abstract intellectual principle or disembodied behavioral experience but refers to the individual's life in its concrete cultural-historical context. The very term "Spirit" lifts Dilthey's discussion beyond the philosophical premisses of pragmatism, instrumentalism and modern-day postmodernism.
Read more about this topic: Wilhelm Dilthey
Famous quotes containing the words distinction, natural, sciences and/or human:
“Only where there is pecuniary equality can the distinction of merit stand out.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Doubtless, we are as slow to conceive of Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual world. We see how past ages have loitered and erred. “Is perhaps our generation free from irrationality and error? Have we perhaps reached now the summit of human wisdom, and need no more to look out for mental or physical improvement?” Undoubtedly, we are never so visionary as to be prepared for what the next hour may bring forth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Normally, the sciences distance themselves from life and the return to it via a detour.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“When we say “science” we can either mean any manipulation of the inventive and organizing power of the human intellect: or we can mean such an extremely different thing as the religion of science the vulgarized derivative from this pure activity manipulated by a sort of priestcraft into a great religious and political weapon.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)