Dilthey, Empathy and Verstehen A Contemporary Reappraisal

Bibliographic Data

ID2397973
AuthorsAustin Harrington (0000-0003-4635-2741, University of Leeds, corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume4
Issue3
Pages311-329
Publication date2001-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/13684310122225145
OpenAlexW2011158433
LanguageEN
Citations received24
References cited25

Wilhelm Dilthey's late nineteenth-century doctrine of 're-experiencing' the thoughts and feelings of the actors whose lives the social scientist seeks to understand has been criticized by several commentators as entailing a 'naïve empathy view of understanding' in which social scientists are said to transport themselves into other cultural contexts in a wholly uncritical, unreflective manner. This article challenges such criticisms by arguing that Dilthey's writings on hermeneutics amount to a highly sophisticated defence of the role of psychological feeling in understanding that should still be of interest to contemporary social theorists. Beginning with a review of the reception of Dilthey's work by Max Weber and the Neo-Kantians, the article goes on to enumerate a number of significant parallels between Dilthey's insights and more recent approaches in social and cultural theory

Doctrine · Empathy · Epistemology · Feeling · Hermeneutics · Parallels · Praxeology · Social science · Sociology · Verstehen · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hermeneutics and Narrative Identity · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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