Selbstverstehen und Fremdverstehen

For Wilhelm Dilthey, the process of self-understanding that comes to expression in autobiographical writing, has a model function for the historical understanding in general. In order to capture the systematic importance of literary self-description in Dilthey’s philosophy, the present study attempts to gain a comprehensive reconstruction of his autobiography concept from the collected writings and demarcates this reconstruction from other over-simplified research accounts. Autobiographical self-understanding can be captured as a constructive cognitive achievement that anticipates Paul Ricoeur’s concept of narrative identity to an astonishing extent. The understanding of others as a form of transposition of self-understanding is further related to contemporary empathy research and supplemented by current questions of literary philosophy. That way, an innovative picture of Dilthey's theory of understanding is created which remains compatible with many research approaches.