Abstract
The second half of the nineteenth century saw a lively interest in the “historical problem.” Shpet here turns to the role of hermeneutics in the ongoing elaborations of the methodology of historical knowledge. Prantl was the first to undertake such a treatment, but his direction turned out to be unfruitful. Dilthey, however, diligently advocated for hermeneutics as the methodological foundation for history as a discipline. While he saw the importance of hermeneutics, his approach was one-sided, which predetermined his entire presentation.
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Notes
- 1.
[In all likelihood, Shpet had in mind here the second part of his History as a Problem of Logic, Shpet 2002: 546–1131.]
- 2.
Steinthal’s previously cited lecture on the types of interpretation was given (in September) before the publication of Boeckh’s book (in December). However, as the author himself relates, it was directly in response to the book, since Steinthal received a proof of it as it was being printed. Steinthal refers to Droysen in the [unpaginated] “Preface” to his Philologie, Geschichte und Psychologie. [Steinthal 1864: Preface.] The quotation he gives is taken from Droysen’s article on Buckle: Droysen 1868: 61–62. [The full title of the piece is “Erhebung der Geschichte zum Rang einer Wissenschaft.” See Droysen 1868: 41–62.]
- 3.
von Prantl 1877. Prantl does not refer to Boeckh. However, his very juxtaposition of “hermeneutics” and “critique,” and equally his identification of philology and history indicate the influence of Boeckh and support the presupposition that Prantl, like Steinthal, familiarized himself with Boeckh’s Enzyklopädie as the proofs became available.
- 4.
[Prantl 1877: 1.]
- 5.
[Prantl 1877: 2.]
- 6.
In this formula, as well as from what follows, the reader will have no difficulty in noting the author’s [i.e., Prantl’s] Hegelianism.
- 7.
Prantl 1877: 3.
- 8.
Prantl 1877: 4.
- 9.
Prantl 1877: 8–20.
- 10.
[Prantl 1877: 14.]
- 11.
[Prantl 1877: 17.]
- 12.
Prantl 1877: 34–35.
- 13.
Prantl 1877: 6.
- 14.
Prantl 1877: 7.
- 15.
- 16.
Dilthey 1989.
- 17.
One casual remark of Dilthey’s made on a particular occasion shows that his first thought was to relate understanding to the activity of phantasy. What actually connects Dilthey’s “Introduction” with his subsequent works in the same direction is, rather, his understanding of reality as a “system of life-units” (cf. Dilthey 1989: 67ff) and his definition of the subject matter of the human sciences as against that of the natural sciences. (Cf., however, also Dilthey 1989: 80ff, 157ff.)
- 18.
Dilthey 1914b: 115. In essence, Dilthey’s articles form a continuation of the work, which he began with the first volume of his Introduction to the Human Sciences. See Georg Misch’s “Vorwort” to the second volume of Dilthey’s collected works. Dilthey 1921: v–ix. In it, Misch informs us concerning Dilthey’s remaining unpublished work on Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics.
- 19.
Dilthey 1996.
- 20.
Dilthey 1996: 235.
- 21.
Cf. Dilthey 1996: 236.
- 22.
Cf. the earlier quotation from Droysen: “What a person is, one learns only in history.” [Contrary to this claim, Shpet did not provide such a quotation earlier. However, in his discussion of Droysen he quoted words that could be understood as having the same meaning as this quotation.] Spranger also compares Droysen’s thought, in another connection, with Dilthey’s views: Spranger 1912: 14–15. See also Erdmann 1912b: 14.
- 23.
Cf. Dilthey 1996: 236.
- 24.
Cf. Dilthey 1996: 237.
- 25.
Dilthey 1996: 237–238.
- 26.
Dilthey 1996: 250.
- 27.
See Spranger’s address cited above. Spranger 1912: 18.
- 28.
Spranger 1905.
- 29.
I will not focus, in this survey, on the views of Wundt or Sigwart concerning the role of understanding and interpretation, since these authors do not ascribe to understanding the fundamental and universal significance that interests me. After what was said on this issue by Dilthey, Spranger, Simmel, and Erdmann, Wundt’s and Sigwart’s discussions are of little interest. Furthermore, to the extent that it is a matter of their views on the logical nature of history in general, they will be of concern in the second part of my investigations, but I will use some of their points below with critical intents. I note only that in each of the authors mentioned there are deficiencies, which, from our point of view, devalue their theories. Sigwart approaches the analysis of propositions and their sense with respect to the “speaker” and not that of the “hearer” (Sigwart 1873: 28ff). He considers the latter to be of importance only for grammar and hermeneutics, not for logic. From the viewpoint of a narrow understanding of logic – since it is a matter of “presentation” without entering into a fundamental analysis of its dependence on “investigation” – we can consider him to be correct. However, when he then reduces the entirety of “understanding” to explanatory inference (Sigwart 1878: 483 (§99)), he simply eliminates the problem – not only of its philosophical and logical significance, but even of its psychological significance, which is the most important for him given his psychologism.
As for Wundt, his own psychologism, which leads him to a hopeless confusion of “interpretation” and “explanation” (Wundt 1908: 54; nevertheless, cf. Wundt 1908: 79) together with an unoriginal compilatory-eclectic presentation, will clearly convince the reader that Wundt did not grasp the original and fresh spirit that the problems of hermeneutics present. Wundt’s discussions convey the impression of judgments about music made by someone who has no ear for music. He tirelessly repeats the words: induction, deduction, analogy, comparison. More than to anyone, what Dilthey said about Mill is applicable to Wundt: “Especially in Mill, we hear the monotonous and tedious clatter of the words ‘induction’ and ‘deduction’ ….” (Dilthey 1989: 158.)
- 30.
Dilthey 1894: 34.
- 31.
Spranger 1905: 18.
- 32.
Spranger 1905: 19.
- 33.
Spranger 1905: 39.
- 34.
Spranger 1905: 21.
- 35.
Spranger 1905: 75.
- 36.
[Spranger 1905: 75.]
- 37.
- 38.
Spranger 1905: 27.
- 39.
Spranger 1905: 76. [This page reference follows the German translation, Špet 1993: 245. The Russian text, used as the basis for this translation, gives Spranger 1905: 77. See Shpet 2005: 389. Moreover, Shpet somewhat incorrectly translates Spranger, for the latter wrote, “Mental life is always immediately given to us only in one’s own psychic experiencing.”]
- 40.
Spranger 1905: 78.
- 41.
Dilthey 2010.
- 42.
- 43.
- 44.
Cf. Dilthey 2010: 108.
- 45.
- 46.
- 47.
[Dilthey 2010: 106–107.]
- 48.
Cf. Dilthey 2010: 107.
- 49.
Dilthey 2010: 108.
- 50.
Cf. Dilthey 2010: 168–169.
- 51.
Cf. Dilthey 2010: 170.
- 52.
Cf. Dilthey 2010: 162.
- 53.
Dilthey 2010: 163.
- 54.
Cf. Misch’s “Preface” to the second volume of Dilthey’s Collected Works. [Dilthey 1921: v-ix.]
- 55.
Dilthey 2010: 173.
- 56.
Cf. Dilthey 2010: 172–173.
- 57.
Dilthey 2010: 174.
- 58.
On this cf. also Dilthey 2010: 208ff.
- 59.
Dilthey 2010: 174.
- 60.
- 61.
Simmel 1908: 21ff. (Exkurs über Sozialpsychologie: 556–563.)
- 62.
Simmel 1908: 561.
- 63.
Simmel 1908: 559.
- 64.
Durkheim 1964: 10.
- 65.
[Durkheim 1964: 7.]
- 66.
Simmel 1908: 21. Cf. Simmel 1907: 4. (This second edition of the work from 1907 is greatly expanded in comparison to the first from 1892.) Simmel writes, “An interest in a psychic process by itself is not yet a psychological interest.” [The Russian text used here, Shpet 2005: 397, gives as the reference the second edition. However, that second edition of Simmel’s work dates from 1905, whereas the third edition was from 1907. Moreover, the quotation appeared on the indicated page in the third edition, but not in the second.]
- 67.
Simmel 1908: 558.
- 68.
Simmel holds a different opinion about his contribution to the theory of historical knowledge. “I am well aware,” he declares, “that this suggestion to solve the psychological-epistemological problem of historical understanding is only a first attempt. Perhaps, it is justified only because it clarifies the presence of the problem in general in its profundity.” Simmel 1907: 41. Indisputably, from Simmel’s viewpoint, his “suggestion” is a first attempt, but it is disputable whether he succeeded in clarifying the profundity of the very existence of the problem.
- 69.
Simmel 1907: 1.
- 70.
This quotation is taken from the first edition (Simmel 1892: 2). I did not find these words in the third edition. Nevertheless, there is in it a further development of the same idea connected with these words: “If the task of history is not only knowledge of what has been known, but also of what has been desired and felt, then this task is resolved only when, in some mode of psychic transformation, what has been desired is co-desired, what has been felt is co-felt.” Simmel 1907: 307; Simmel 1892: 15.
- 71.
Simmel 1908: 3.
- 72.
[The German translation omits this entire sentence. By doing so, Shpet appears to be claiming that sociology studies what is singular and individual! See Špet 1993: 258. Simmel writes, “History, however, has to do at least in part – whether it is more than in part we will not go into – with the individual, with absolutely unique personalities.” Simmel 1907: 2].
- 73.
Simmel 1907: 2. However, [History studies what is singular and individual] not in its “reality,” as naïve realism understands this, with its formulation of the historical task as a determination of “how it really was” (Simmel 1907: 42), since history is neither a copy of reality (Simmel 1907: 51) nor a reflection of historical reality (Simmel 1907: 55), but is a certain […] of the communicated content, where the psychic processes themselves accept the “form of history.” Simmel 1907: 40–41. [The ellipsis here is to show that Shpet’s manuscript text has a word missing.]
- 74.
- 75.
Simmel 1907: 7–9.
- 76.
Simmel allows also “impersonal forces” to serve as operative factors in history: law and mores, language and ways of thinking, culture and forms of communication. Simmel 1907: 18. Curiously, in the third edition, Simmel is not prepared to call these factors objective (die objektiven Gebilde) as he did in the first edition of this work. Simmel 1892: 12.
- 77.
Simmel 1907: 27.
- 78.
Simmel 1907: 27.
- 79.
Simmel 1907: 28.
- 80.
Simmel 1907: 29–30.
- 81.
- 82.
Simmel’s own “solution,” Kantian in spirit, is a conception of the historical as a “form” of psychic processes and is hardly acceptable. More about this, however, in another place.
- 83.
Concerning the method of the interpretive approach to this subject matter, see my already mentioned article, “Predmet i zadachi etnicheskoj psikhologii” [“The Object and the Tasks of Ethnic Psychology”], Shpet 1917–18: 1–4.
- 84.
Simmel 1907: 29.
- 85.
See Shpet 1917–18.
- 86.
[Droysen 1868: 10.]
- 87.
Simmel 1907: 29–30; 36–37.
- 88.
He reproaches “historicism” for not understanding precisely this. Cf. Simmel 1907: 28–29 f.
- 89.
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Shpet, G., Nemeth, T. (2019). [Dilthey’s Development of Hermeneutics]. In: Nemeth, T. (eds) Hermeneutics and Its Problems. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 98. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98941-9_8
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