Explaining history

Hippolyte Taine's philosophy of historical science

Philipp Müller

pp. 81-99

in: Uljana Feest (ed), Historical perspectives on Erklären and Verstehen, Berlin, Springer, 2010

Abstract

Historians of European historiography have often characterized Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) as an adherent of the positivist school of thought, typical for the development of a scientific culture in Western Europe that differed from its German counterpart.¹ In accordance with that view, Wilhelm Dilthey grouped him together with other scholars like John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer against who Dilthey tried to develop his conception of the human sciences based on the notion of "verstehen" (see Dilthey [1924] 1957, 139ff.). Dilthey understood Taine as proposing to analyze the human mind by identifying its individual components and then explaining their meaning by laws of their relation. He argued that such an approach might be adequate for the natural sciences, but neglected the fact that an analysis of the mind had to start from a given psychological connection that was prior to any definition of particular phenomena. From Dilthey's point of view, applying Taine's theory to historical studies only made them look more objective while actually Taine was unaware of just following the prevailing convictions of his time (idem, 191f.).

Cited authors

Dilthey Wilhelm

Mill John Stuart

Spencer Herbert

Taine Hippolyte