Abstract

Wilhelm Dilthey's contributions to hermeneutics go back to 1860 when he wrote a long manuscript entitled “Schleiermacher's Hermeneutical System in Relation to Earlier Protestant Hermeneutics”. Because of the long hold that theology had over hermeneutics as the theory of interpretation, the important theoretical writings that contribute to Dilthey's life project of a Critique of Historical Reason before 1900 refer less to the problems of interpretation and more to the nature of understanding. Dilthey prefers the term lived experience (Erlebnis) and increasingly focuses on the capacity of lived experience to encompass both inner and outer sense. Dilthey's last essay on hermeneutics entitled “The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Manifestations of Life”, he reiterates the three levels of understanding: the elementary understanding that derives from the commonalities that nurture us from birth, the higher conceptual understanding contributed by the sciences, and, finally, re‐experiencing as reflective assessment.