The point of Wilhelm Dilthey's critique on speculative philosophies of history in the Book I of the Introduction to the Human Sciences

Abstract

Having taken the chair that had belonged to Hegel at the University of Berlin, Wilhelm Dilthey writes his Introduction to the Human Sciences (1883). In his Book I, he talk about the philosophies of history to explain to the reader what was missing from historical knowledge to acquire his full epistemological justification. Dilthey distinguishes the philosophies of history into three types, listing their main authors and theses, and specifying their mistakes and gaps, which are reduced to a determinant point. This article proposes to elucidate, by examining the quoted text, Wilhelm Dilthey's criticism of the philosophies of history: precisely, what is the point of his criticism. It is a study that extracts its validity from the intellectual merit intrinsic to the criticism in question, whose epistemological consequences are still useful today, and also from its historical importance, insofar the Dilthey's critique of the speculative philosophies of History means a starting point to the so-called critical philosophies of History.