Between Nature and Spirit: Naturalism and Anti-Naturalism in Dilthey Eric S. Nelson 1. The Promise and Crisis of Naturalism In the hundred years since his death, Wilhelm Dilthey's works have evoked contradictory receptions. Dilthey's epistemic project is to a large extent ))naturalizin芋, as his Neo-Kantian, phenomenological, and later hermeneutical criti口 have repeatedly noted. At the same time, it is 吨nt1naturalistic<< according to his positivistic and scÎentistic reception In this paper, 1 reexamine the mediated nexus of nature and spirit ar ticulated in Dilthey's works, particularly the writings of the 1890's that are closer to a naturalis!Íc and positivistic perspective without embracing it. 1 argue that Dilthey's project Îs more coherent than his naturalistÎc and antÎ-naturalistÎc critÎcs have supposed. Such a reconsideration of Dilthey's project offers an evocatÏve alternative strategy for responding to the opposition between naturalism and anti-naturalism that continues to inforrn contemporary philosophy. Beginning with the naturalistic perspectÏve presupposed by and established in the modern natural sciences, Dilthey immanently unfolds its scope, possibilities, and lirnits in relation to the psychological, historical, and ethical life 01 concrete embodied individuals. He does so without relying on essentialist religious or metaphysical conceptions of being, ideal validity, or an unchanging seH. Dilthey not only accepted the validity of the modern natural scienc白, he justified them by historically and anthropologically contextualizing them. N ature and history do not necessarily indicate the elirnination of knowledge and truth; they are its contexts and conditions. Without these life-processes, and the emergence of the cognitive from the non-cognitive, there would be no science as a prac tÏce of knowing and enactment of truth In discussions of Dilthey's conception of science, Dilthey's attentÏon to the natura1 sciences is frequently underemphasized, even though Dilthey wrote extensively about the historical development and lifecomportment of the modern natural sciences. 1 In these writings, such as One example of this interest is Dilthey's attention to developments in the natural scÎences in his review essays gathered 皿 G.S. volumes XV二XVIL References to 141 Eric S. N elson his account of the constÌtutÌve role of StoÌcism in the development of 臼rly modern natural philosophy, Dilthey helped pioneer the histoty of science as a philosophical undertaking2 Dilthey' s this-worldly and historical justification of the sciences, and his corresponding transformatÏon of the modern project of epistemology, critically traced the extent and limits of scientific knowledge in the nexus or context of life (Leben szusammenhang) The epistemology of the sciences not only calls for its socialhistorical contextualization; it also needs to be rethought in relation to i臼 psychological, anthropological, and natural conditions. In this context, human knowledge is faced with the felt self-relational reflexivity (Inne由盯den) of the self, the singular in出viduation of natural and historicallife in an individual life, and the inability of humans to fathom and comprehend the whole of life as an integrated metaphysical or universally valid system. The truth of the naturalistic worldview that orients natural scientific inquiry has no limits in the continuing practice of the natural sciences. However, the natural standpoint enters into aporia and crisis when it is illegitimately extended beyond i臼 life-contexts and reified 臼 a metaphysical world-system independent of experience Dilthey naturalis tÏcally contextualized epistemic claims that involve an appeal to what transcends experience and the categories of life enacted through experience. At the same time, Dilthey hermeneutically rejected the naïve empiricism and intuitionism that require an appeal to a noninterpreted immediate givenness. For Dilthey, there is no access to experience independent of the mediation of expression and understanding; the direct self-access 四d transparent self-evidence of an uninterpreted intuitlomst 叫nner experience<< or an unmediated em户口ClSt >>sensuous expe rience" prove to be illusoty. In contrast to vulgar life-philosophy and growing irrationalist appeals to a pure stream of 且fe without the media tion of words and concep臼, which Dilthey would challenge with a scien tific conception of life-philosophy for the sake of life that cannot live without knowledge, Dilthey noted how both concep臼 and intuitions are inappropriately separated from their life-contexts. Through the overextension and abuse of reason and intuition, lived 白甲eriences are fixated Wilhelm Dilthey's works are to: Gesam附加 5chγiften , 26 vols. Göttingen: Vanden hoeckιRuprecht, 1914一2011 (cited as G.5.); Engl凶 translatior盹 when available, are from R.A. Makkreel and F. Rodi (eds.): Wilhelm Dilthey, Selected Wo地s, 6 vols Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985-2010 (口ted 目 SW) 2 Such as the essays gathered in G.S. II; on the intellectual historical context of Dilthey's account of the transition to modern science and modernity, see L. Frohman, Neo-Stoicism and the Transiti拍坦 Modem町 ín Wílhelm Dílth呵's Philos呻hy o[ HistoηJournal of the History of Ideas , 56: 2, 1995, 263•287 142 Naturalism and Anti-Naturalism in Dilthey and dynamic life-perspectives become re出ed metaphysical world-pic tures Dilthey's defense of naturalism is a limited and conditional one to the extent that he critically resituated naturalistic claims vis-à-vis the subject in the experience. Dilthey's epistemic subject is a situated, experiential, and ernbodied one vrithin the life-nexus. Insofar as it involves rnore than being an irnpersonal product of natural and social forces , thi四s expe盯n1 e阳ntial s阳ub剧lec口t could well be desc口n口ib阮ed as invol扣Vl血ng a argument. Dilthey liberalizes the naturalistic thesis through the conditional yet still significant self. Due to Dilthey's moderate nominalism and experientialism, Dilthey minimalistically reinterpreted Kantian a priori transcendental categori口 as conditionally enacted and contextual1y embodied life-categories (Lebenskategorien). Dilthey consequently confronted naturalism, as the exteriority of worldly causal relations, with the reflexively felt and interpretively mediated character of the phenomenally given and the factical in the lived-experiences of an individuallife that is experienced as being my own The experiential hermeneutical perspective of an individuallife cannot disregard or escape the natural causal relations vrith which it is entangled. This contingent seH, as the individuation of meaning in the rnidst of its natural and social conditions, cannot be coherently and adequately reduced to, or reconstructed as, a discrete set of >natural< elernents ab stracted from the complex life-nexus. In the co-givenness of self and world, spirit and nature, to be a seH is to have a world 叫here-for-m归. The world,臼 a relational nexus of signi自cance, pr时upposes 1臼 being句there for someone. The individual is ineffable from the perspective of the natural standpoint. It is the individual person as a living ethical reality that is the other defining feature of modernity and the prima巧1 focus of the human sciences in Dilthey' s historical analys坦 Despite the role of the ethical individual in the human sciences, natu ralism is the primary methodological orientation for all modern science Yet it is exposed to a dialectic that results in dogrnatic rnetaphysical theses and explosive aporias that force its liberalization. The naturalistic standpoint is caught in perplexity and crisis in being extended to 巳thicallife and challenged with issues of value , purpose , and rneaning that it cannot appropriately address. It is the contexts and contents of life 一副 the media tion of nature and spirit that motivate the methodological differentia tion of the sciences and the articulation of reality in rnore complex and multifaceted ways 143 Eric S. Nelson 2. Dilthey and Naturalistic Positivism Dilthey's name is frequently invoked in Anglo-Arnerican contexts in conjunction with the idea articulated by c.P. Snow in the rnid-twentieth century that the natural scienc臼 and hurnaniti巳s constitute two distinct cultures. Dilthey is understood as a radical dualist in this discussion and this rernains the predominant way of construing his dis tÌnction between interpretive understanding in the human sciences and causal explanation in the natural sciences. However, "WÎthin philosophical discourses, Dilthey has also been read as a proponent of the supremacy of one culture over the other. One way of reading Dilthey identifies the basic tendency of his thinking as being in some sense >naturalizing< and >positivistic<. Although this judgrnent rnight appear peculiar, Dilthey hirnself affirrned the farnily affinity between these two movernents along with materialism as de盼 velopmental variations of a cornrnon 咱atural standpoint<< or >>natural wor1dview<<. Dilthey not only noted their affinity with and resonance "WÎth one another but with his own critical empirical project that also begins with the fact of the modern natural sciences. Broadly construed, the naturalistic standpoint encompasses a 部üding commitment to a non-super natural and scientific conception of the world. Naturalism is transforrned into natural scient出c positivism, according to Dilthe如 when the critical standpoint of the phenornenal character of the physical world is recog nized.3 The positivist turn in the modern natural sciences entails that naturalism and materialisrn as doctrinal metaphysical systems are illusory. Dilthey's later hermeneutical critics, Heidegger and Gadamer, have maintained the contÎnuity between Dilthey and scientism.4 日白degger clairned that Dilthey's differentiation of two varieties of sciences, natural and human, remains a positivistic distinction. It is derivative of the rnore original question of being (Sein) as such and as a unified whole in contrast with the ontic investigation of beings as entities (Seiende). Gadarner rnaintaìned that Dilthey was trapped between the scientistic methodologi cally reductive conception of the world and the romantic experience of an affectively rnoved and felt vital individuality5 Because of bis affinity with 3 Cf. G.S. V, 403 4 On Dilthey and pos山vism, see H. Sommerfeld, Wilhelm Dilth可 und der Positivis mus: Eine Untersuchung zur ~Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften<. Berlin Buchdruckerei von J. Herper, 1926; H.-H. Gander expands on the 日αdegger iDspired analysis of Dilthey's positivism as the culmination of metaphysics in his Positivismus als Me叩hysik: Voraussetzungen und Grundstrukturen von Diltheys Grundlegung der Geisteswissenschaften. Freiburg: Alber, 1988 5 日ans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Methο d. London: Continuum, 2004, 214 144 Naturalism and Anti-NaturalÎsm in Dilthey positivism, Gadamer has stressed how Dilthey remained a student of Cornte and Mill as well as of Goethe and Schleierrnacher. This characteri zation of Dilthey rnakes little sense if 咀aturalistic positivism<< is defined in the limited sense of, in Benedetto Croce's words,叫he enerny of everything spiritual and historical<<.6 An expanded and historically fairer exposition of positivism, one that allows us to productively and critically clarify Heidegger and Gadarner's portrayal of Dilthey, is that it is naturalistic and positivistic in the sense that it encompass田 (1) the critique of rneta physical conceptions of reality for the sake of encountering 阻d investi gating reality in its ernpirical givenness and phenornenality and (2) the epistemic priority of the methods, models, and results of the modern natural sciences In another variation on this line of criticism, one adopted by Walter Benjarnin and Theodor Adorno, it is argued that Dilthey did not overcome the last residues of naturalistic biology and universalistic anthropology by sufficiently historicizing and socializing human existence.7 This is intentional on Dilthey's part insofar as he opposed the one-sidedness of the historical school as rnuch as he did a 且mited reductive naturalism. In an early response to Dilthey's criticism of the notion of a folk soul (Volksseele) , or collective agency, Georg Sirnrnel contended that there are no real individuals for the same reasons that Dilthey argued there are no collective entities. The collective and the individual are equally constituted products of natural conditions and social forces. 8 Simmel proposed that this position, Dilthey is not directly named, was a positivism that incon sequentially stopped short in the face of the rnyth of the person.' 3. Dilthey and Anti-Naturalism A second way of reading Dilthey has rnade his thought the target for pro ponents of the thorough naturalization of the human sciences and every day life. Dilthey appears as a rnajor antagonist of scient出c naturalisrn from Otto Neurath's polemical assessment to Chrysostomos Mantzavi6 B. Cr旧e: History as the S比 ry of Lib,叮 London: G. Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1941, 129 7 On Benjamin's reading of Dilthey's 啊îtings as an anthropologically based oppon时en旧t of r阻ad副1臼叫1 h怡凶川tωon肌nCl叼 s盹e臼e B. H陆f妇an旧ssen, ,研防刷F目川i什1"优-er Be叫役呵7即耐刷n阳"阴旷削n的z扩白's Ot1.的"盯γ H历"盯〈σy.Off 5归ne.盹5儿, An阳功nals, Hu附仰m阳?η,a叩tωW仰剧剧n Beωzngs, 耐and A乡η吨Z哩g'彷ls¥ Berkeley: U ni凹ve盯rs1t此盯可y of California Press, 2000, 53 8 Compare the discussion of these points in L. Udehn: Me的odologicalIndividω lism Background, History and Meaning, 2001 , 68-74 9 Ibid 145 .Eric S. N elson nos's more recent book Naturalistic Hermeneutics. According to this argument, Dilthey cannot successfully prove that the human and natural sciences are discrete autonomous unities and that this th臼is dangerously undermines the unity, coherence, and integrity of the sciences. 10 Dilthey is read as placing inherent limi臼 on the progress of positive scientific knowledge and rejecting a naturalis tÏc conception of the world for one in habited by biographical persons, felt and conceptual motivations, social groups , cultural patterns , political institutions, and other mythical folkconcep臼 Dilthey's differentiation of the human sciences consequently places them outside the realm of legitimate scientific inquiry. The expanded notion of rationality and science promoted by Dilthey inevitably leads to irrationality and anti-science for these criti臼 This positivist criti cism is echoed in Marxist materialismj Lenin and Lukács described Dilthey and Weber's justification of interpretive understanding (verstehen) in the human sciences as a hig且er obscurantism and non-clerical form of idealism. 11 There are earlier expressions of such SusplclOns concerning the meaning and implications of interpretive understanding, w也ich is the ele mentary stumbling block for Dilthey's science oriented commentators Theobald Ziegler in the late 19'h-century warned of a "dictatorial Ignorabimus<< (>>we will not know<<) that he proposed stemmed from Dilthey's interpretation of Augustine. Dilthey emphasized Augustine's articulation of an irrational subjective interiority and ineffable i口dividuality that can only be comprehended through an intuitive felt understanding. Such a feeling-to-feeling transmission between persons cannot be reproduced and thus endangers the objectivity and rationality of science. An interesting disagreernent concerning Dilthey's import for the sciences is evident in the von Mises brothers. The economist of the Austrian school Ludwig von Mises accepted Dilthey's methodological individualism and the incalculable character of life in the 1920's in his confrontation with Neurath's conception of socialist calculation. The logical positivist Richard von Mises maintained, however, that ignoramus et ignorabimu5 the >>we do not know and wil1 not know<< that Emil Du Bois-Reymond in troduced in a lecture on August 14, 1872 is a direct consequence of 10 O. Neurath, SozioloJ.!je im P.炒51缸lismus (1931) in: M. Stoltzn矶时,而"阳岛四 Texte zur wissenschaftlichen 咽Teltauffassung. Hamburg: Meine鸟 2006, 285; C Mantzavin时 , N aturalistic HI凹neneutics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005 11 On Dilthey and Marxist materialism, see K. Anderson, LeniJ飞 HegeZ, and Westen叼 Marχism: A Critical Study. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995, 184; T. Rockmore, lrrationalism: Lukács and the Marxist View 01 Reason , 1992, 212 146 Naturalism and Anti-Naturalîsm in Dilthey Dilthey's differentiation of explanation (e地μren) and understanding (vers甜hen).12 Walter Pollack and Georg Misch argued against the claim that understanding the finitude and conditionality of cognitively established theoretical knowledge as entailing an obscurantist prohibition on further re search and inqui巧乙 13 If we turn to Dilthey's discussions of Du Bois Reymond's thesis, Dilthey actively rej巳cted the idea that there are intrin sic limits to scientific inquiry even as he argued that the sciences are d丘』 ferentiated and varied by their objects. 14 The unity of science 1S not to be dogmatically 且mited; it is differentiated through the multiplicity of the empirical world. Dilthey would consequent!y agree with Haeckel's critical reply to Du Bois-Reymond's Ignorabimus and Virchow's Restγ"mgamur Impavidi progrediamur (吨dvance fearlessly") , while disputing posit凹lS t1C claims about the import and implications of the scienc臼 within ordinary everyday life. In an early Literaturbrief from 1876, Dilthey argues that Du Bo卧 Reymond's thesis is as unscientific as the dogmatic scientific materialism that it attempts to oppose. 15 The current configuration of the scope and limits of the sciences can and ""Will be redrawn. Crises and alternative hypotheses and theories recon直在ue the scope and limits of scientific knowledge. However, being disposed towards Hume' s argurnentation concerning what theory and scientific theory can achieve, and prefiguring Rudolf Carnap's distinction between science and ethics, Dì1they concluded that there are no internallimits to science in i臼 own domain yet, even if every question could be scientifically resolved into natural laws , the riddles and tasks of practicallife would remain Jürgen Moltmann right!y argues that Dilthey did not advocate ob scurantlsm m r臼ponse to science and reason. Dilthey identified a scientis tic obscurantism in those who overlooked history, deluded that they alone possess truth independently of others. 16 Their ahistoricallack of vision re sembles the priestly princes of metaphysics 听ho refuse to acknowledge the constitutive role of the affective, the subjective, and the individual that are the conditions of both life and knowledge. No desires and senti12 R. von Mises, Positivism: A Study in Human Understanding. New York: Dover Publìcations , 1968, 209 13 W Pollack, Ubeγ die philos叩hischen Grundl.唔"en der 切issenschaftlichen 且'orschung Als Beitrag zu einer Methodenpolitik. Berlìn: F. Dümmler, 1907: 119; G. Misch, Vom Lebens一 und Gedankenkreis Wilhelm Dilth可s. Frankfurt a. Main: G. Schulte Bulmke, 1947, 49 14 Pollack 1907, 119 15 G.S. XVII, 5 16 J. Moltmann, HI叩e and Planning. New York: Harper & Row, 1971 , 60 147 Eric S. Nelson ments run through the veins of their knowing subjects and so such subjects are constitutively incapable not only of living but of knowing. The thesis that reason is grounded in sentiment and hîstoricallife îs of course another argument with precedents in Hume's phîlosophy of cornmon life. Misch maintained 出at Dilthey adopted the same phenomenalist epis temic basîs as the positivist advocates of the natural sciences, whilst rein terpretmg ltS slgn迁icance and implicat旧时. There can be in Dilthey no >>we will not know<< that 且mits processes of further intellectual develop向 rnentY There is instead only a reasonable recognition that we do not know in an absolute or royal way. This pluralist clairn cuts against both reductionistic naturalism and anti咀aturalism. Insofar as anti-naturalism assum田 a royal route to truth through intuition, dialectic, or phenomenology, it commits the same error as its opponents 18 There are a number of readings suggestive of an aIternative concep tion of nature and spirit in Dilthey's writings. Errnarth describes Dilthey as an idealist inculcated >>with a considerable dose of naturalism<<. But more adequately, as Dilthey did not idealistically deny the natural and so创 cial exteriority of the world, others stress Dilthey's interrnediate and rn• diating role in these disputes. 19 Dilthey articulated what could well be depicted as an expansive and liberal in contrast with a cramped and illiberal naturalism; one that could encornpass value, validity, and the ide~ as the content of consciousness in accordance wi由 a scientific and personoriented principle of phenomenality (Satz d,盯 Phänomenalität) in which nature and the world are not only neutral, impersonal, and indifferent but 叫here-for-m归 >>The supreme principle of philosophy is the principle of phenomenality: according to this principle everything that exists for me is subject to the condition that it is a fact of my consciousness. All outer things, too, are only given as a connectÏon of facts or processes of the consciousness. Objects, things , only exist for, and in, 20 consclOusness.<< 17 Misch 1947, 49 18 As Austin Harrington argued, one cannot 刮目ctly assimilate Dilthey to eîther naturalism or the antÍ-naturalîsm of Husserl and Neo-Kantianism, see: Dilthey, Empathy and v告ηtehen: a Contemporary Reappraîsal. European Journal of Social Theory; 4.3 (2001): 311-329. Compare, however, the arguments for such a com mon anti-naturalism in John E. Jalbe口 Husserl's Position be阳 een Dilth可 and the Windelband-Rickert School o[ Neo-Kantianism. Journal of the History of Philoso phy, 26: 2, 1988, 279-296 19 B.B., Li的础。古enc衍, Monatshefte der Comenius-Gesellschaft, 4-5, 1895, 126 20 G.S. V; 90; SW!, 245-246 148 Naturalism and Anti-Naturalism in Dilthey 4. Nature and Spirit In a late short retrospective piece, his Draft for a Prφce (1911) for his epistemological and psychological writings , Dilthey noted that the dominant positivist rnodel of the natural scienc臼 had 叫runcated the spiritual cultural world<< by transforming it into a rnere folk-illusion.21 This illusion from the persp~ctive of mere natural mater且1 relations -凹, however, not a groundless illusory projection but functionally real. The most reductive naturalist and rnaterialist inevitably presuppose the practices of the hurnan world and the enactrnent, expression, and understanding of hurn阻 life. It is this practical1ife-context that al10ws the human scientist to recognize the individual self in its so口ality and its productive creative relations with the whole of its life. Dilthey sceptically revealed the aporias of constitutive idealism and l臼 problematic intellectualist and representationalist assumptions about mind and reality, arguing that life is given through its phenomenality and yet is not merely a phenomenal appearance constituted by an empirical much less an ideal consciousness. Whereas only nature cornes frorn na ture, life in its relational tensions and living actuality is 叫here-for-m归 Life is given as a complexly mediated productive nexus that c四 form awareness, meaning, and value for itself. This relationally emergent life is in need of words and the cultivation of its relational capacities for expression and articulation. As such, life is not immedi甜ly or in山tively given to 1臼elf. It is reflexively aware (lnn凹:verden) , which is 叫he most sirnple form in which psychic life can appear".22 The simple and elemental is al ready ref1exi飞rely relational and mediated. That is to say, it must be under stood and interpreted through its expressions, objectifications, and practÍces. There is no knowledge of a world independent of perception and lived-曰~perience, which provide the context and actuality for the consciousness of idealism and the material nature of naturalism The naturalizing approach to reality based on a materialistic understanding of the natural sciences continues to be the prevailing tendency of our time despite the ant卜naturalistic cal1s to re-enchant the world and the theological turn in some forms of recent philosophy. The anti-naturalis tÍc distrust of the sciences is also scrutÌnized by Dilthey in the same preface Dilthey maintained that it is not modern science and its successes that are the problern but the triurnph of a narrow conception of scientific method over sClence 1臼elf. 21 SW I!, 2 22 G.S. XIX, 66; SW !, 254 149 ... Eric S. Nelson Despite positivism' s limitations and dogmatic overextension, and 出us also of the naturalistic worldview when it becomes a problematic metaphysical doctrine about the totality of the world, Dilthey articulated the basic empirical dynamic of knowledge while rejecting positivism's speculatÏve opponents , >>who tore thought away from sense-perception<.♂ Ac cording to Di1they, both positivism and KantÏan inspired critical em户口 口sm are correct to stress both experience and its limits, since the natural 阻d historical empirical conditions and contexts of life cannot be transcended even as further articulation and evaluation pushes individuals beyond the factuality of their real conditions. In contrast to the one-sided reduction of life to biological and physiological instincts, drives , and the senses that are i臼 natural basis or to the actÏvity of a non-sensuous spirit or constitutive consciousness, Dilthey proposed a suggestive alternative strategy to both: to 吨nderstand life on i臼 own terms<<, immanently interpreting it from out of itseIf vrithout eliminating its fullness for the sake of one of its elements and bring it through its felt reflexivity (Inneweγde时, methodological interpretation and inquiry,扭d self-reflection (Selbstbesinnung) to re f1ective cognitÏon and validity about itself. 24 To this extent, science (Wissenschaft) Ìs not excluded or demeaned,剖 Dilthey's scientistic critics maintain, as it plays a central role along with art and ethics in the formation (Bildung) and self-ref1ectiveness of modern individuals in relation to the contingency of natural forces and social conditions.25 Dilthey remarked almost twenty years earlier in Life and Cognition (1892-1893) that 叫hought , which sets out to u!timately comprehend the universe, is bound to the transient existence of organic life. Thought is extremely fragile; it appears only at isolated poin臼 in organic life and as such only at intervals as a temporarγfunctÏon. Everywhere it appears as a part of life and in its service 产 In this signific阻t text, Di!they is clearly pursuing a naturalistic strategy insofar as he analyzes how all things emerge from contingent natural conditÎons and circumstances and the common bodily sensuous schema of animal and human life. As evident in the previous quote, thought strives to universalize itself and the person to individuate herself in the context of these conditions. This universalizing from out of the facticity and finitude of one' s situation and milieu is possible because of the pre-conceptual felt self-reflexivity (Innewerden) and 23 SW 1I. 2 24 SW lI, 2 25 Compare E.S. Nelson: Disturbing Tru的 Art, Finitude, and the Hi耐旧n Scien c.ιm Dilthey. theory@buffalo: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Humanities, 11, 2007, 121-142 26 SW II, 345 150 Naturalisrn and AntÏ-Naturalisrn in Dilthey the intensified self-reflectiveness (Selbst.古esinnung) in which life turns back on itself and through which life becomes aware of itself, articulating itself as a life." The individuation and cultivation of a self occurs through an immanent intercrossing movement, encompassing the natural-biological as well as the social-historical, toward the possibility of the ideal and potentially even the religious. It is here that the ethical, the individual other worthy of respect, becomes visible within the context of the world and society Dilthey described this process of the becoming of knowledge as 吨 real natural epistemology<<. It requires an expansive conception of naturalness, without doctrinal naturalism's confinernent of the phenornena, in contrast with its reductive and eliminative forms. 5. Becoming a Self Dilthey did not conclude his ar伊rnentation with the assertion of natural ness in this exp阻ded sense. Dilthey critically traced the boundaries of natural scientific methods in the face of the felt reflexivi ty of the subject (Innewerden) , the singular nexus of the individual's life (Individuation) , and the inability of humans to know and comprehend life as a comprehensive universally valid systematic whole. Beginning with naturalism 剖 a general point of departure in his writings of the 1890's, Di!they imman ently demonstrated its possibilities and limits in the context of the psy chological, historical, and ethicallife of individuals while declining to ap peal to essentialist, religious , or metaphysical conceptions of a substantialized self Dilthey's wider project extends beyond the theory of knowledge as it is shaped by the concern for recognizing and valuing an ethical individual seIf vrithin the context of the natural and social-historical determinants that appear to undermine the identity of such a self. Dilthey does not so much posit a self as an atom of analysis outside the social, as Simmel charges. Simmel dismantled this individuali巧; which for Dilthey is not merelya theoretical thesis but a practical vocatÏon, as an undigested remnant resisting full social me刮目ion. There 凹, however, no unmediated individual in Dilthey. He revealed instead how the self is expressed and cultivated only within and through the immanent structures and conditions of social-historical life. The individual self can establish itself and other 27 See E.S. Nelson: Self-Reflection, In阳pretatzon, 耐ld Historical Life in Dilt品可, m H.-U. Lessing, R.A. Makkreel und R. Pozzo (eds.) , Recent Contributions to Dilthey's Philo呻妙。if the Human Sc.阳ces. Stuttgart: Frommann-holzboog,却11 , 105-134 151 Eric S. Nelson se1v臼剖 a universal value only in and through this nexus, as an intersectional point of crisscrossing forces that extend beyond it It is Dilthey's practical ethical orientation that ultimately constitutes the genuine turning point from 出e natura1 to the human world. This 盯ansition from nature to spirit also has its epistemic conditions. While Dilthey naturalistically critiques claims appealing to a non-interpreted immediate givenness and the direct self-access and seH也evidence of an unmediated >>Înner experience<:< or an unrnediated sensuous perception, which lead to problematic transcendent clairns about reality as a systemω atic totality, Dilthey critically if minimalistically due to his reinterpreta tion of transcendental categori臼剖 conditiona1 embodied life-categories confronts naturalisrn with the reflexively and interpretively processed and mediated character of the given and the factical. Since facticity and givenness rnust be 出ere-for-me (that is, there for a seH) and since 1ivedexperiences are cornplex relatìonal wholes invol飞ring purpos1veness, Dilthey concludes that they cannot be coherently and adequately reduced to or reconstructed as discrete >>natural<< elements abstracted frorn the comp1ex life-nexus. A1though naturalism is generally the primaty orienta tion of all rnodern science and Îs the rnost basic of worldviews in his Welt an5chauungsleh刊, it is the contents of life and the objects themselves that call us to methodo1ogica1 p1ura1ism and articu1ate rea1ity in more multifaceted and nuanced ways 6. Between Nature and Spirit: The Mediating Ro1e of Psycho1ogy Di1they reinterprets epistemo1ogy as having a socia1, psycho1ogica1, and biological dimension that cannot be eliminated without distorting the ac tivÌti田, processes , and tasks of cognitÌve knowledge (Eγkenntni5) in the context of a盯r口tlcl mumcatl盯1凹ve understanding. Di过lthe叮y challenges metaphysical and sc口len皿t1S t1C for口rr口m丑na址1is盯m丑旧1四s t出hat int臼e盯r叩pret know1edge to c∞on旧sist of 吼wo町rld1es臼s v咀alidit叮yand value claims. The sense of actuality is not a product of Ìntellectual positingj it is shaped by the interaction of cognition with feeling , instincts , and volitions that develop as a complex whole in a person through experiences of resistance,且m拭目ion, and restraÌnt. The Origin of 0阳 Belief in the Reali.可 of如 E阳阳1 World and 1 t5 Justi卢cation (1890) shows how rea1ity is neither a representationally con structed phenomenal object nor an immediately given in Ìntuition or inner experience. Reality as 叫here for me<< is exhibited as immediate in empirical consciousness through felt reflexive awareness (Inneweγden). This apparent immediacy is rnediated through biological drives , environmental 152 Naturalism and Ant卜Naturalism in Dilthey adaptations, and practica1 interests formed through the p1ay and work of impulse and resistance. Our sense of reality presupposes the elemental interaction and rnediation of self and world prior to their differentiationj reality is irreducible to a worldless subject or an unperc白ved and non-given object, to pure consciousn臼s or rnater皿1ity, much 1ess to their metaphysi cally reified rnanifestation as idealisrn and rnaterialisrn Di1they's phi1osophica1 and psycho1ogica1 writings from the 1890's, are representative of a highly productive and controversial period in the deve10pment of his thought. Dilthey's endeavors to give both naturalistic and hurnanistic strategies their due regard and reconceive epistemology through the methods and data of the sciences, particu1arly history and psycho1ogy; 1ed to the negative reaction of both positivists and idealists No aspect of his thought was rnore provocative than his advocacy of a de scnpt凹e and analytic psychology as a >>hurnan science<< (Geistl白wzssen schaft) , which w剖 opposed by those who considered psycho1ogy an excll卜 sively naturalis tÎc experirnental science, including pioneering experimental psycho1ogists such 剖 Ebbinghaus and Wundt who pursued reductionist programs that uprooted individuals from their environing world and social existence. Dilthey's critÌcs also included Neo-Kantian philosophers Windelband and Rickert in particu1ar protected the distinctiveness of the >>cultural sciences飞 as sciences of individual persons and ideal values, frorn naturalism by abandoning psycho1ogy to the universa1izing hypothetica1causal explanations of the natural sciences. These early debates continue to haunt later reflections On the possibi1ity of a humanistic or interpretive psycho1ogy. Diltheγs con町ibutions to these phi1osophica1 and psycho1ogica1 disputes over the actuality of the self and its experiences of the world are worth reconsidering for their his torical significance, and given the increasing albeit still too lirnited ap preciation for the social, historical, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions of psychological inquiry because we are perhaps in a better positÌon today to recognÌze the continuing relevance of Dilthey's contextualizing epistemology and individual-oriented interpretive psychology.28 The Idea5 for a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology (1894), Dilthey's most controversial work, raised the ire of both positivistic psychology (Ebbinghaus and Wundt) and phi1osophers committed to a transcendenta1 rea1m of va1idity and va1ue claims (Rickert and early Husserl). Di1they ar ticu1ates through a comp1ex and nuanced reading of the psycho1ogica1 1iterature of his times the possibi1ity of a descriptive and ana1ytic (that is , an interpretive) psychology. Dilthey does not argue for an opposition 28 1 discuss the impure and plural character of D过they's psychology further in E.S. Nelson: lmpuγe Phenomenology: Dilthey, Epistemology, and lnte甲rettτ e Psychology. Studia Phaenomenologica 1 口, 2010, 19-44 153 Eric S. N elson of rnethods understanding and explanation and a duality of sciences natural and hurnan as sirnplistic depictions of Dilthey's thinking incorrec句 clairn , Diltl町 does not advocate abandoni叫E 臼u山sa址l ne旺xu旧s of r町eal町 he re口1Ïnds his readers that 卢echanical and efficient causal explanation in the natural sciences construct an abstract causal nexus linked by hypotheses and separated from the dense bonds and thick relations of the effective nexus (WirkungszI在sammenhanl!.) of life. In kins stuaZn1dd1ng, relat1011s of meanmg and causal reiatIons aremutually entangled Ne1ther onc dssolves the efhclent causal and COIldmIonal nature of sumtifically eXplainable reality. Nowhere is the connectedness of meaning and causal叼 more 盯gn出cant 山n in the human sciences themselves. As a consequence, Dilthey did not reduce hurnan scientific inquiry to pure interpreuve understandmg D1lthey utlHzed both effiqent CAusal explana tion and interpretive understandi吨 in his psychology as well as other human sctnt11C Stratepes such as fLIneuonal and sEructurai explananon of social 且ld cultural systerns Dilthey did not discard causality; he critiqued the rnisuses and abuses of causalltymthe reductIVc emp1rleal expenmentai psychology and sqentisrn of his time for the sake of genuine scientific inquiry. It is interesting to note that Misch 战ntified Hurne 剖 an irnportant source for Dilth町'; historical project. As with Hume's rnoderate a叫 l且ife-n肘ex旧 onen盯 t忧ed s阻ce卢D t1C口IS盯r叽X P且y归SI皿cs and radωlca址l va盯r口le时t1阻es of scepti旧lC口1阻sm, Dilthey sceptically interrogated the POSSEbiHty of fathommg causal connect1ons to achIeve cert且ntv-or rne呻hysical truth, whether this is rnaterialist or ideal叽 while articulating the social reproduction and transforrnation of meaning and knowlede:e within the contexts of the da剖il忖yc∞omrr口1Ufl1阻ca剖tlve p阻肌ct旧臼 of ordin盯 l旧I证fe斗.J;9 As opp。于d to justifying the sciences through a questioI呻le appeal to the 盯transcen今阳n趾t 0时r S皿Cl阻ences by s且ce叩pticall抄y aba阻ndoni丑I皿z且19 exaggerated kno耿W训rledge cla剖1m虹ms and 由山rough the an时叫th巾ropol沁O吕♂lCa址l and histori川cal c∞On盯te旺x盯t阳l ences.3C 29 On Dilthey's mõe-:ate empirically orie_nted s~epticism, see E.S. Nelson: Empiri c!>叫 Factic叩" and the Immanenι e 01 L松的 Dilthey. P叮: Warwick Journal of Ph卜 losophy 18, 20口7, 108-128 30 This reading runs contra可 to F.c. Beiser's account in The German Historicist Tra dition. Oxford University Pre阻, 2012, 433; Di1they is not concerned with answer 1ngthemdIUl seepucbyappealingto a dub1ous flcuon thatpurpoztedly tran tt1e natural and Nstoneal world, as the separauon of ep1stemology from the C Dndi tions of life abandons the most fundamental questiõns of kno-;'ledge. Beiser accordingly misses the historical complexi可 of Dilthey's position in dismissing 154 Naturalism and AntÏ-Naturalism in Dilth叮 Given the rnediatÏon involved in concrete individuallife, psychology cannot be appropriately understood as a subjective self-Íntuition and introspection. This approach denies the facticity of life and rnind, as mediated phenomena dernanding interpretation,皿d undermines psychology's sci entific i.e. , intersubjec盯e and UI山ersalizing task. Nor can psychology be adequate 10 its task of illurninating individual human life if it is the col lecting of discrete data abstracted from and dissolving the life-nexus of individual and sociallife that are then externally reconstructed and organized through causal hypotheses Objecti々íng third-person rnethods are useful in every science but should be contextualized in a hurnan-oriented psychology that recognizes the conditional, negotiated, and fragile unity and identity of the individual person and the person's interpretive, rnediated, and selιreflexive life. Be cause of the multifaceted mediation of the >>acquired psychic nexus<<, which as structured contrasts with an atomistic bundle of elements and as acquired differs from the vision of an innate intrinsic self, psychology cannot be merely descriptive but must also be analytic, cornparative, and structural. Structural psychology reveals the ternporal enactment of the categories of life in lived-experience and provides additional support for his reinterpretation of epistemology and the hurnan sciences in contrast with movernents that exclude empirical psychology frorn these roles. Dilthey did not abandon this psychological prograrn even as it becarne more deeply hermeneutical in his later works. Contributions to the 5阳dy o[ h功vidualiη(1895-96) further articulates the comparativemorphological strategy of elucidating individuality in its relational contexts. Through the hermeneutical oscillation between singular and whole, both are further elucidated. Di!they rejected the N eo-Kantian paradigm of the ideographic character of the cu!tural sciences developed in Windelband. Dilthey right!y illustrated how (1) natural sciences such as astronomy encompass an ideographic dimension and (2) the human scienc臼 presuppose and propose generalizing and systematizing clairns that allow the effective life-nexus to be interpreted through the typical and the singular. It is in this natural-historical context that the actual and not merely ideal individual can be recognized and respected. The world overflows the individual according to Dilthey: >>The infinite richness of life unfolds itself in individual existence because of its relations to its milieu, other humans and things. But Dtith町's critique of abstract intellectualistic theories of knowledge and the positive epistemic role for science and life of the critique of historical reason 155 Eric S. Nelson every particular indîvidual is also a crossing point of contexts which move through and beyond its particular life.((31 N onetheless, the conditional and situated yet sti11 meaningful and pur poswemdmdual:personIS the baSEc pomt of departure and task for the human sciences and of Dilthey's hermeneutical justification of methodological individualism against the collectivist tendencies dominant in German philosophy and social the。可 Dilthey's methodological individualism differs from other varieti臼 because it g四sps the individual as a contextual historical realirv rather than as a Hobbesian fictÍon and allows for the use of soc皿1 conc二 pts. 50 cial realities such 剖 the state, society,扭d community are given in experi ence and need to be mterpreted m order to understand SOCIal l1fe Tile1r experiential givenness does not justify positing them as independent m山h less metaphysical realities. Dilthey's critique of reified notions such as the spirit of the people (\1(口lksgeist) and community (Gelηeinscha仕) for the sake of 由 relational yet sti且 distinctive individ山1, which was reformulated by Plessner against its poisonous fascistic forms in The Limits o[ Communi吵, proved to be prescient 7. NaturaIly Interpreting Persons? Dilthey's philosophy of the hurnan sciences appears anti~naturalistic from the perspective of an impoverishing and reifîed monistîc naturalism Dîlthey's naturalism is such that the appropriate recognitîon of each ob- )ectmd class of objects Calis for recogmuon ItHmethodologeally plu』 raiuuc rather than ontologically momsuc and zs opposed to the m1nimalistic desert-producing logicistic naturalism of philosophers such as Quine. From a Quinean eliminative viewpoint, Dilthey would app臼r no doubt even more dogmatically em户口cal in his defense of the unrestricted and unprejudiced empirical inqu町 (>>unbφngene E呻旷的) against empîri cum and more laxly lenlent and baroque than CarnapBs-from Qume's perspective overly tolerant logical positivism Dilthey's critique of metaphysics places transcendent objects into suspicion as being beyond the limits of cognitive knowledge. This critique does not extend to phenomenal objects given in experience, all of which (natural and human) are mediated. The mediation of each object does not entail a reduction to isolated elements that suppresses their sense and significance. It 叫uires that they be describ叫 analyzed,叫 mv削ga时乌 theÍr own way 田 wholes. Although a11 sci巳nces are expressions of life, 31 G.S. VII, 134-135 156 Naturalism and Anti-Naturalism in Dilthey which cannot escape 1证矿s conditions, the human sciences are immanently constituted in intersubjective relations hy practical and ultimately ethical and social-political interests m a way that distinguishes them from the natural sciences that rest more securely in the objectified world Dilthey's expansive naturalism prefigures the philosophical anthro pology of Misch and Plessner. This more contextualized, nuanced, and tolerant form of naturalism proceeds from the natural-biological and anthropological conditions of human life through their social~historical coñ figurations to their unique intersection and crossing in the life, selfreflectÏon, and individuation of a conditional yet meaningful and purposive nexus that can be designated an individual person Heidegger construed, problematically in my estimatÍon, Dilthey's project as a flawed anti-naturalist personalism and consequently a failed phenomenology which gave the natural point of view and the sciences too much purchase.32 Dilthey's works are an ambiguous source for the new phenomenology, as Husserl noted in his defensive and polemical justification of the primacy of an absolute science rising against all natural, anthropological-psychological, and social-historical conditions and contexts. Given their common sources in the descriptive and analytic empiricist philosophy of Trendelenburg, who was a determining influence on Dil they and Brentano, Dilthey could appreciate the description of the emer gence of higher forms of understanding, meaning, and validity described in Husserl's Logical lnvestigations and i臼 tendency toward a realist worldly referentiality. Husserl, 5cheler, Heidegger learned from Dilthey's personalist psychology or his depiction of an immanent self-interpreting affective, worldly, and historicallife. 33 Dilthey's thought is incompatible with the transcendental~ontologi叩 cal turn in philosophy that occurred in Neo-Kantianism and phenomenology二 Dilthey is not an antÌ-naturalistic thinker, did not advocate a bracketing of the natural and the objective for the sake of a pure p且e nomenological startmg point that is independent of the social-historical life-nexus, and would not attempt to replace metaphysics placed in doubt by cultural-historical and epistemic-reflective critique and revealed to be more affective and individual than cognitive and universal with a new fundamental transcendental~ontological philosophy. Philosophy should become a less pretentious and more modest critical reflectiveness (Besinnung) that cannot abandon its close relations with the natural and human sciences or with cultural life. The rnultiplicity of 32 M. Heidegger, History of the Concept of 刀m巳 Prol喀omena. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985, GA 20, 161 33 Compare Heidegger, GA 20, 161; E. von Aster, Die Philosophie der Gegenwart Leiden: A.W Sijtho缸, 1935 , 149, 155 157 Eric S. Nelson ways of life and worldviews is in this context irrevocable.34 The intercon textuality 01 human lile and the value 01 individual personality are articulated through interdisciplinary human s口entific research. As Ernst von Aster noted, metaphysics is abandoned in Di!they lor ph过osophical anthropology and universal historyJS As Aster and Misch argue, a philosophical reflection that inlorms and is informed by the human sciences and modestly remains within the im manence 01 nature and lile is incompatible with the rehabili归tion 01 the metaphysical, theological, and transcendent in the phenomenology 01 the 1920's 36 Misch describes how the anti-metaphysical critical philosophies 01 Kant and Di!they direct us back to empirical lile and its problems, while the new "lile-philosophical" ontology departs Irom that lile to return to the metaphysicalY Dilthey's advocacy 01 the antimetaphysical legacy of the Enlightenment and critical-positivist prioritization of ex perience and the experiential sciences are sources of resistance to the new poτvers of authoritarianism and re咱enchantment.38 8. Feeling and Nature in Dilthey's Aesthetics Dilthey's aesthetics provides a distinct yet related example 01 Dilthey's resistance to enchantment and his critical appreci盯ion of naturalism and modern且其 one which can only be briefly sketched here. Dilthey's approach to art has been portrayed as a continuation of Romanticism that due to the emphasis on feeling, imagination, and the free responsiveness 01 the subject is incompatible with the realism and naturalism 01 the second hall 01 the 19th-centu巧瓦 But in his aesthetic writings, particularly The Three Epochs of Modem Aesthetics and lts Present Task (1892) , Dilthey emerged as a more s严卫pathetic and complex aesthetic theorist who criticized the limitations while articulating the significance and possibilities of literary realism and naturalism e.g. modern artistic articulations of the naturalistic feeling 01 lile ... against their Neo-Romantic detractors and the emergence of symbo且st spiritualism and its visionary enthusiasm 34 On Dilthey's plural approach to worldviews, and Heîdegger's ontologically monis tÎc critÎcÎsm of Dilthey's >ontic pluralism勾 see E5. Nelson: The World Pict阳"e and its Conflict in Dilthey and HeideggeχHumana Mente: J ournal of Philosophical Studies 18, 2011 , 19-38 35 E. v. Aster 1935, 51-52, 103 36 E. v. Aster 1935, 103-104 37 G. Misch, Lebensphilosophie und Phã'nomenologie: Eine Auseinandersetzung der Diltheyschen Richtung mit Heidegger und Husserl. Stuttgart: Teubn町', 1967, 281 282 38 Misch 1967, 281一282 158 Naturalism and Anti-Naturalisrn in Dilthey The power 01 realism lor Dilthey lies in how it critically reveals the discrepancy between outer appear扭ce and internal reality, even as its weakness is its inability to reflectively generalize and interpretively focus on what is essential to evoking and heightening the "Ieeling 01 life" (Lebens gefühl). Rather than rejecting naturalism and direct!y delending Romantic aesthetics, naturalism is understood as achieving i臼 truth when it not only copies and reproduces but elucidates, intens出es , and transforms the life that it portrays. Di!they reinterprets realism through the tension 01 reality and feeling, resistance and will, and the objectivities of social life and lived-experience 01 the individual. The naturalism of social novels such as those of Dickens, Balzac, and Zola is the emergence of a new style and sensibility appropriate for the modern technological conditions of life that has not yet achieved a >>new inner form<< for the work of art in relation to the subjectivity of the artist and audience. Dilthey consequently reinterprets both romanticism and realism as revealing two sides of the tensions of reality and feeling, resistance and will, and the objectivities of sociallife in the context of indi viduallived-experience (Eγlebnis) Life-philosophically and hermeneutically interpreted, the artistic ten dencies of realism and naturalism prove to be one-sided and incomplete steps in contrast to the more expansive and liberal unfolding of naturalism in writers such as Goethe. Dilthey not only emphasized the naturalistic dimensions of Goethe and Schleiermacher but relied on these to formulate his objections to narrow naturalism. Nonetheless, despite his criti cisms, literary naturalism and realism are more aesthetically prornising for the >>present task of aestheticμthan the abandonment of the tension be tween reality and leeling in a literature that one-sidedly and unreflectively embraces organic vitality, intuitive vision, and irrational feeling Di!they's critical evah川ion of radical subjectivism in a臼theti臼 1S an example of his wider 油ermeneutical empiricist<< strategy of critiquing and contextualizing idealist epistemology by situating knowledge in the so cial-historical, psychological, and natural conditions 01 life. To this extent, Dilthey is at best an ambiguous heir to Romanticism and much more of a critic of its late-19th century pathologies 9. Dilthey's Legacy Dilthey's he盯r口m口时lene阳uticall扣eg伊ac巧y onl:妙y pa町r口t句 resonaιte臼S 皿 thínkers such as Heidegger and Scheler, who did not lurther articulate the emergence and dífferentiation of the human immanently from w比hin the natural. Hei degger and Scheler rehabilitate in their own ways and in distinction Irom Di!they's historical anthropological approach to human lile the 159 Eric S. N elson dignity of the ontological and the transcendent over against animal and organic life Heidegger excluded the discourses of the natural and human sciences as ontic from the tasks of a fundamental ontology. Heidegger did not recognize or allow for the basic role that Dilthey gave the particular sciences in interdisciplinary reflection and philosophy itself. Scheler adopted the mystical core of >>life-philosophy<< and the personalism of interpretive psychology in order to rehabilitate the metaphysical and theological char acter of values. Scheler not only rejected >>biologisrn<< but the mediated an thropologies of Dilthey and pragmatism as overly naturalizing, advocating instead an anti-naturalistÎc philosophical anthropology that maintained a radical difference in essence between anirnals and the rnetaphysical religious animal. 39 The inheritance of transcendental philosophy in both i臼 Neo-Kan- tian and phenomenological forms appears as an unbridgeable abyss between nature and spirit, the animal and the human. It was not in Heidegger or Scheler's phenornenology but, as discussed in other contrÎbutions to this volume , in Plessner's bio-hermeneutical anthropology that the medi卢 ated character of nature and spirit continues to be analyzed. Echoing Dilthey's articulation of the self in the midst of the forces and conditions of natural and historical life, Plessner corrected the partiality of both naturalism and an anti-naturalistic personalism by forcefully elucidating their inner coherence in the emergence of a relational self. The naturally eccentric and artificial constructive anirnal called human occurs in the midst of life. 39 E. v. Aster 1935, 103-104.