Hermeneutic Evolution: Contrastive Study of Dilthey and Ricoeur Hermeneutics

During the blooming and growing days of natural science, it was believed that human sciences should follow the same steps and patterns as natural science to solve their existing problems. Some philosophers, showing disagreement with this theory, tried to invent new theories for human science. These scholars believed that human science methodology should be compatible with current, under-discussion topics in this area. Wilhelm Dilthey was one of scholars who were against following and adapting natural science methodologies in the realm of human science. In Dilthey’s view, due to fundamental differences between human sciences and natural sciences, it was not possible to apply natural science theories to human science. Therefore, to solve the mentioned problem, Wilhelm Dilthey suggested Hermeneutics. Dilthey believed that the topics under discussion in human science are human phenomena which are meaningful and cover specific meaning. Therefore, its related and adopted methodologies should be a means through which meanings and concepts can be discovered and interpreted. What Dilthey meant was social agents’ intention, motivation, will, and expectation of what they do in the society. He suggested a descriptive psychology for conceptualizing and understanding human phenomenon. However, hermeneutics underwent some changes during its days of growth and development. These developments and evolutions went on till, Ricoeur, one of the recent hermeneuticians, started posing the idea that the main responsibility of hermeneutics is trying to disconnect human works from its own creator or author. He believed that discovering the meaning of the creation is the attributed meaning by its reader not the meaning lied in the mind of author. This theory would result in relativity of understanding, since there are also numerous interpreters and respectively numerous interpretations. The current study aims to compare two well-known philosophers, Ricoeur and Dilthey, in the field of hermeneutics besides comparing their theories and the differences among their ideas. The researcher has also added a very brief introduction to their methodologies along side with their historical changes.