Pattern and Meaning in History (Rle Social Theory) - Wilhelm Dilthey''s Thoughts on History and Society

'One may state Dilthey's significance in most general fashion by characterizing his work as the first thorough-going and sophisticated confrontation of history with positivism and natural science. Dilthey's sweep was universal: he strove to reduce to order the multifarious realms of knowledge, the conflicting traditions of cultural study, that he had embraced. Thus Dilthey laid out a program that no mortal - and certainly no one whose mind had been formed in the third quarter of the nineteenth century - could hope to bring to completion. Yet despite its inconclusiveness, Dilthey's work exerted enormous influence. The distinction he had drawn between natural and cultural science became standard for historians and, to a lesser extent, for social scientists also. After Dilthey historians no longer needed to apologize for the "unscientific" character of their discipline: they understood why its methods could never be quite the same as those of natural science. And the contemporary tradition of intellectual history grew naturally out of Dilthey's teaching.' - H. Stuart Hughes

List of contents

1. The Historical World and the Methods of History 2. The Historical Relevance of Autobiography and Biography 3. Individual Life and its Meaning 4. The Understanding of Others and the Objective Mind 5. The Historical Approach and the Order of the Human World 6. Meaning and Historical Relativity

About the author

H.P. Rickman

Summary

'One may state Dilthey's significance in most general fashion by characterizing his work as the first thorough-going and sophisticated confrontation of history with positivism and natural science. Dilthey's sweep was universal: he strove to reduce to order the multifarious realms of knowledge, the conflicting traditions of cultural study, that h

Product details

• Authors: Wilhelm Dilthey, H. P. Rickman, H.P. Rickman
• Assisted by: H P Rickman (Editor), H. P. Rickman (Editor), H.P. Rickman (Editor)
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 21.12.2015
• EAN: 9781138994799
• ISBN: 978-1-138-99479-9
• No. of pages: 168
• Series: Routledge Library Editions: Social Theory; Routledge Library Editions: So; Routledge Library Editions: Social Theory
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; SOCIAL SCIENCE / General, PHILOSOPHY / General, Social Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General