From the perspective of mere representation, the external world always remains only a phenomenon.
Wilhelm DiltheyRead
The knife of historical relativism... which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Historical relativism challenges traditional beliefs, but it can also lead to understanding and healing.
In this quote, Wilhelm Dilthey suggests that the concept of historical relativism, which questions fixed truths in metaphysics and religion, has the potential not only to dismantle established ideas but also to foster healing and understanding. By critically examining and breaking down such beliefs, individuals may find new ways to comprehend their existence and relationships with the world, leading to a transformative experience.
Themes
Historical RelativismMetaphysicsReligionHealingUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on philosophical thought, I could reference this quote to discuss the impact of historical perspectives on personal beliefs.
More from Wilhelm Dilthey
All quotes βAny theory intended to describe and analyze socio-historical reality cannot restrict itself to the human spirit and disregard the totality of human nature.
Wilhelm DiltheyRead
The sciences which take socio-historical reality as their subject matter are seeking, more intensively than ever before, their systematic relations to one another and to their foundation.
Wilhelm DiltheyRead
All science is experiential; but all experience must be related back to and derives its its validity from the conditions and context of consciousness in which it arises, i.e., the totality of our nature.
Wilhelm DiltheyRead
If there were a science of human beings it would be anthropology that aims at understanding the totality of experience through structural context.
Wilhelm DiltheyRead
The individual always realizes only one of the possibilities in his development, which could always have taken a different turning whenever he had to make an important decision.
Wilhelm DiltheyRead
Similar quotes
You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?
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All law is situational law. The sovereign produces and guarantees the situation in its totality. He has the monopoly over this last decision.
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What God requires of us he himself works in us, or it is not done. He that commands faith, holiness, and love, creates them by the power of his grace going along with his word, that he may have all the praise.
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A nation writes its history in the image of its ideal.
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You can't escape the past in Paris, and yet what's so wonderful about it is that the past and present intermingle so intangibly that it doesn't seem to burden.
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The woman is uniformly sacrificed to the wife and mother.
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