From the perspective of mere representation, the external world always remains only a phenomenon.
Wilhelm DiltheyRead
Any theory intended to describe and analyze socio-historical reality cannot restrict itself to the human spirit and disregard the totality of human nature.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of considering all aspects of human nature when analyzing historical and social realities.
Wilhelm Dilthey asserts that any theoretical framework aimed at understanding socio-historical conditions must encompass the entirety of human existence, including emotional, social, and cultural dimensions, rather than focusing solely on abstract, intellectual aspects. This holistic approach ensures a more comprehensive grasp of the complexities of human life and its historical contexts.
In practice
In a lecture on social theory, one could quote this to emphasize the need for a holistic understanding of human behavior.
From the perspective of mere representation, the external world always remains only a phenomenon.
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.
If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.
If the greatest god is the stillness all the motions add up to, then we must ineluctably be included.
Cities have always offered anonymity, variety, and conjunction, qualities best basked in by walking: one does not have to go into the bakery or the fortune-teller's, only to know that one might. A city always contains more than any inhabitant can know, and a great city always makes the unknown and the possible spurs to the imagination.
Hinduism insists on the brotherhood of not only all mankind but of all that lives.
And they can appreciate, through personal experience, that the really decisive battleground of American freedom is in the hearts and minds of our own people... Each day we must ask that Almighty God will set and keep His protecting hand over us so that we may pass on to those who come after us the heritage of a free people, secure in their God-given rights and in full control of a Government dedicated to the preservation of those rights.
Of mankind in general, the parts are greater than the whole.
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