I often quoted from the German Dilthey Collected Works, Volume 7, in my paper “A bibliographic survey about E. T. Gendlin’s early theory of experiencing: influences on his psychotherapeutic studies from W. Dilthey’s philosophy” (Tanaka, 2004–5), almost twenty years ago. Based on this experience, I would like to contribute to an anthology of Dilthey’s writings.
However, it should be noted that what I write in this post will not lead to a direct understanding of “A Process Model” (Gendlin, 2018a). This is because Dilthey’s philosophy is about the foundation of the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) and does not focus on the interaction between the body and its environment or the body as a plant or animal.
About “Erleben” = “experiencing”
Before presenting the anthology, I would like to make one more proviso.
Many people interested in Gendlin’s theory know that “experiencing” was proposed as a translation of the German word “Erleben.”
At the time of writing his master’s thesis, Gendlin made a clear distinction between “experiencing” and “a unit experience” as follows:
However, a closer examination of Dilthey’s primary literature reveals that in most cases, Dilthey used the nouns Erleben and Erlebnis without distinguishing between them. This fact contrasts with his contemporary Edmund Husserl, who strictly distinguished between them (Mimura, 2015, p. 70). In Dilthey’s English translations, it is common to translate both Erleben and Erlebnis as “lived experience” without distinguishing between them. Therefore, I will quote the text translated as “lived experience” without distinction in the following anthology.
Anthology
In Gendlin’s master’s thesis, volume 7 of the German Dilthey works (Gesammelte Schriften) is cited most often, followed by volume 5. Therefore, the following anthology will also be quoted from these two volumes. The two volumes were fully translated into English and published from the late 1990s to the early 2000s (Dilthey, 1996; 2002).
1. “Life (Leben)” or “lived experience (Erleben)” as a starting point for human sciences
2. Immediacy of “lived experience”
3. Relationship between the present and the past in “lived experience”
4. “Lived experience” as murky edge
5. Inexhaustibility of “lived experience”
6. Progression of “lived experience”
7. Contrast between “logical concepts” and “the expression of lived experience”
The original phrase in the above “larger thought-formations” is “größere Denkgebilde,” a literal translation. However, Gendlin deliberately translated the phrase as “explicit formulations of thought” (Gendlin, 1950, p. 34). His translation seems to me to evoke his later philosophy.
The original word in the above “truthful[ness]” is “Wahrhaftigkeit.” However, Gendlin translated the word as “authentic[ity]” (Gendlin, 1950, p. 45). Later, Gendlin preferred the term “authenticity” (Gendlin, 1999), so we might recall the above passage from Dilthey (as well as Heidegger’s Eigentlichkeit) when Gendlin used the term.
8. Non-logical concepts as an expression of lived experience
9. Music as an expression of lived experience
10. “Explication” in a non-parallel sense
In “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning,” Gendlin used the term “explication” in a parallel sense and the term “comprehension” in a non-parallel sense.
But, in his later works, he began to use the term “explication” in a non-parallel sense, as in comprehension, as “richer, more explicit, more fully known” (Gendlin, 1962/1997, p. 120) as follows:
Thus, I consider that the usage in his later works is closer to the meaning of “explication” in Dilthey’s quote below:
After all, the term that corresponds to Dilthey’s “explication” is “comprehension” rather than “explication” in Gendlin’s earlier work “Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning” as follows:
11. Creativity of “expression”
12. Determinate-indeterminate nature of words
13. Hermeneutic circle between the part and the whole
14. Better understanding
15. Difference in terminology definition: “content.”
There are terms that Dilthey uses positively, Gendlin uses negatively, and vice versa. For example, let’s look at the term “content” here.
Dilthey does not use “content” negatively when discussing the primordial qualities of lived experience.
But Gendlin uses the term content rather negatively, in the sense that it can be separated from the whole in thought as if it were an enclosing container.
Gendlin uses the word “content” only when describing the characteristics of a later countable unit experience, and he does not say that the primordial uncountable experiencing consists of contents:
It should be noted that Gendlin did not take over Dilthey’s work in terms of the detailed definition of the term “content.”
Unsolved problems
The above is my attempt to determine where Dilthey positively influenced Gendlin. However, some things that Gendlin often states that he owes to Dilthey have unclear sources, for example. “Dilthey says that experiencing is inherently always also an understanding already, and also an expression,” and “’ In principle any human expression is understandable,’ Dithey said” (Gendlin, 1997a, p. 41). Some ambiguities are resolved if the source is known, while others are not resolved even if the source is known. The latter is the case about “‘In principle...”. This point will be discussed separately at some point.
References
Dilthey, W. (1996). The rise of hermeneutics (translated by F. R. Mameson & R. A. Makkreel). In Hermeneutics and the study of history (edited by R. A. Makkreel, & F. Rodi, Selected works / Wilhelm Dilthey, Vol. 4, pp. 235–58). Princeton University Press. Originally published as Dilthey, W. (1924). Die Entstehung der Hermeneutik. In Abhandlungen zur Grundlegung der Geisteswissenschaften (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 5, pp. 317–38). B.G.Teubner.
Dilthey, W. (2002). The formation of the historical world in the human sciences (edited by R. A. Makkreel, & F. Rodi) (Selected works / Wilhelm Dilthey, Vol. 3). Princeton University Press. Originally published as Dilthey, W. (1927). Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften (Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7). B.G.Teubner.
Gendlin, E. T. (1950). Wilhelm Dilthey and the problem of comprehending human significance in the science of man. MA Thesis, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago.
Gendlin, E. T. (1989). Phenomenology as non-logical steps. In E. F. Kaelin, & C. O. Schrag (Eds.) American phenomenology: origins and developments (Analecta Husserliana, Vol. 26) (pp. 404–410). Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Mimura, N. (2015). Gendlin’s early philosophy and the theory of experiencing (Philosophy that continues to question experience, Vol. 1) [in Japanese]. ratik.
Hideo Tanaka (2004–5). A bibliographic survey about E. T. Gendlin’s early theory of experiencing: influences on his psychotherapeutic studies from W. Dilthey’s philosophy, Part 1 & 2 [in Japanese, English summary & table of contents]. Bulletin of Meiji University Library, 8, 56–81 & 9, 58–87.