Wilhelm Dilthey

Wilhelm Dilthey
Wilhelm Dilthey
	Dilthey, c. 1910
Born	19 November 1833; Wiesbaden-Biebrich, Duchy of Nassau, German Confederation
Died	1 October 1911 (aged 77); Seis am Schlern, Austria-Hungary (now Italy)
Education
Education	Heidelberg University; University of Berlin; (PhD, January 1864; Dr. phil. hab., June 1864)
Theses	De principiis ethices Schleiermacheri (On the principles of Schleiermacher's ethics) (January 1864); Versuch einer Analyse des moralischen Bewußtseins (An Attempt to Analyze Moral Consciousness) (June 1864);
Academic advisors	August Böckh; Franz Bopp; Kuno Fischer; Jacob Grimm; Theodor Mommsen; Leopold von Ranke; F. A. Trendelenburg; Eduard Zeller
Philosophical work
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy; Hermeneutics; Epistemological hermeneutics; Historism; Lebensphilosophie
Institutions	University of Berlin (1865–66; 1882–1911); University of Basel (1867); University of Kiel (1868–1870); University of Breslau (1870–1882)
Doctoral students	Leo Baeck, Martin Buber, Max Dessoir, Bernard Groethuysen, Georg Misch, Eduard Spranger
Notable students	Max Scheler, Max Weber
Main interests	Verstehen, literary theory, literary criticism, intellectual history, human sciences, hermeneutic circle, Geistesgeschichte, facticity
Notable ideas	General hermeneutics,; distinction between explanatory and descriptive sciences,; distinction between explanatory and descriptive psychology,; typology of the three basic Weltanschauungen

Wilhelm Dilthey (/ˈdɪltaɪ/; German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈdɪltaɪ]; 19 November 1833 – 1 October 1911) was a German philosopher who held Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher working in the emerging modern research university, Dilthey aimed to establish the methodological foundations of the human sciences, including history, hermeneutics, and nascent psychology, in relation to the natural sciences.

Dilthey's account of what constitutes the empirical and experiential is drawn from the traditions of German philosophy and literature, and differs from British empiricism and positivism in its central epistemological and ontological assumptions. But he emphasized experience and historical evidence, and has sometimes been styled an empiricist by contrast to then prevailing idealism.