Teo, T. (2003). Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) and Eduard Spranger (1882-1963) on the developing person. Humanistic Psychologist, 31 (1), 74-94. doi:10.1080/08873267.2003.9986920 (original) (raw)

At the end of the 19th century most psychologists conceptualized psychology as a natural science. However, a few philosopher-psychologists, including Wilhelm Dilthey, envisioned psychology as a Geisteswissenschaft with understanding as its core method. It is less known that Dilthey also promoted ideas for developmental psychology. This paper addresses the views of Wilhelm Dilthey and his student Eduard Spranger on the human mind and developmental psychology. While Dilthey provided general guidelines for studying mental life, Spranger promoted a holistic characterization of adolescence gained through the method of understanding. It is suggested that a geisteswissenschaftliche psychology may offer relevant, yet, neglected insights for contemporary developmental psychology. I suggest that most developmental psychologists consider their field of study to be scientific, and that they know what the concept "scientific" means. The term is even understood as self-evident, and there is no further need for reflection, as it refers to the rese~ch practices of the present scientific community who share an unquestioned paradigm (see Kuhn, 1962). Science in developmental psychology is understood as emulating the natural sciences and not the humanities (see Miller, 1993). It means that a researcher should formulate hypotheses within theoretical frameworks, formulate relationship between variables, use objective and reliable measun:ments and observations, base explanations on statistics, discover umversal laws and processes, and consider the experiment to be the right path to knowledge. But as critics have pointed out (e.g.,. H~lz~mp, 1972), in this process reality is fragmented ~d research 1S hmtted to parts, details, and elements, but psycholOgists are not able to study the whole person.