The Possibility of Universal Objective Validity in the Human Sciences: A Pragmatic Interpretation of Wilhelm Dilthey's Hermeneutics Open Access
Hammond, Courtney Elizabeth (2009)
Published
Abstract
Abstract
The Possibility of Universal Objective Validity in the Human
Sciences: A
Pragmatic Interpretation of Wilhelm Dilthey's Hermeneutics
By Courtney Hammond Murphy
This dissertation focuses on Wilhelm Dilthey's inquiry into the
possibility of securing scientific knowledge of the human world
while
preserving the truth of the human spirit. More specifically, he
asks whether universal objective validity is possible in the human
sciences. I trace the
origins of the question from Leibniz to Kant, in order to highlight
some of Dilthey's main advancements, namely finitude and
historicity.
Whereas Leibniz fails to recognize space and time as enabling
conditions, Kant fails to recognize that time is not merely an
enabling condition, but also experienced content. And whereas
Kant's project in the first Critique is mostly concerned
with the limits of our knowledge in the natural sciences, Dilthey
is concerned with the human sciences. Thus, Dilthey, in his
critique of historical reason, goes one step further than
Kant in insisting that time is a real category and not simply
ideal. This, in turn, effects the categories by which we think,
since they too must be temporal.
Thus, after "realizing" time and the categories by which we think,
Dilthey now asks if universal objective validity is possible. I
contend that it is, and
that Dilthey's hermeneutics provides us with the rules for
understanding these real categories, and the method for bringing
our initial certainty of
immediate lived experience to the level of reliability in
articulating that experience. I then appeal to Dewey in order to
conclude that universal objective validity in the human sciences is
possible when our interpretations contribute to and conserve the
meaning of their objects as made manifest in practical
activity.
The Possibility of Universal Objective Validity in the Human
Sciences: A
Pragmatic Interpretation of Wilhelm Dilthey's Hermeneutics
By
Courtney Hammond Murphy
B.A., Loyola Marymount University, 1995
M.A., University of California, Riverside, 1998
Advisor: Rudolf Makkreel, Ph.D.
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the
James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies of Emory University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in Philosophy
2009
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction: Dilthey and the Problem of Universal Objective
Validity
1
Chapter I: From Leibniz to Kant: The Origins of the Crisis of
Historicity and its
Solution
15
1. Background: The Kant‐Eberhard Controversy
18
2. Eberhard's Criticisms of Kant's Critique
28
3. Kant's Criticism of Leibniz and His Solution to the Problem of
Epistemic
Justification
33
4. Kant's Distinctions
38
5. Kant's Schematism
43
Chapter II: Dilthey's Critique of Kant
57
1. Dilthey's Indebtedness to Kant
59
2. The Principle of Phenomenality and the Justification of Facts of
Consciousness
63
3. The Changing Subject and the A Priori Conditions
for the Possibility of Experience
70
4. Dilthey's Categories: Real vs. Formal
78
5. Space and Time: Real Conditions of Experience
90
Chapter III: Dilthey's Project: The Critique of Historical
Reason
96
1. The Guiding Question of the Critique of Historical Reason
97
2. The Age of Crisis: Historicism vs. Positivism
99
3. The Natural vs. Human Sciences and the Nature of
Objectivity
112
4. Dilthey's Hermeneutics and the Possibility of Objectivity
121
5. Verstehen and Objectivity in the Human Sciences
130
6. Verstehen and its Foundations
136
Chapter IV: The possibility of Universal Objective Validity in
the Human
Sciences
146
1. De Mul's Solution to the Problem of Universal Objective
Validity
149
2. The Possibility of Universal Validity in the Human
Sciences
160
3. Objectivity and Universal Validity in the Human
Sciences
167
Chapter V: A Pragmatic Approach to Universal Objective
Validity
178
1. Dilthey's Pragmatic Leanings
182
2. Dewey's Pragmatism and Universal Objective
Validity
190
3. Dewey's Conception of Experience
192
4. The Objects of Experience
197
5. The Experimental Method
200
6. Universal Objective Validity
206
Bibliography
210
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