Wilhelm Dilthey

From the perspective of mere representation, the external world always remains only a phenomenon.

Any theory intended to describe and analyze socio-historical reality cannot restrict itself to the human spirit and disregard the totality of human nature.

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.

The knife of historical relativism... which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.

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.

If there were a science of human beings it would be anthropology that aims at understanding the totality of experience through structural context.

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.