Individuality and Interpretation in Nineteenth-Century German Historicism

Abstract

The methodological controversy in the humanities and the social sciences between the advocates of an explanatory approach similar to that of the natural sciences (erklären) and the proponents of an interpretative perspective (verstehen) has its roots in a wide-ranging cultural transformation that took place in Europe around 1800. Traditionally, this transformation has been described as the shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism, involving, among other things, the rise of a new, expressivist conception of art and the substitution of a universal notion of rationality by an emphasis on the incommensurability of individual ages and cultures. A different account of the cultural transformation of the early nineteenth century is given by Foucault (1966, 314-354). According to Foucault, a fundamental epistemological rupture took place in the period around 1800, which he describes as the shift from the classical to the modern épistémè. A crucial aspect of the rise of the modern épistémè is the discovery of man as a transcendental subject that can also be the object of empirical knowledge. Furthermore, in contrast with the emphasis on stable taxonomies of the classical age, the modern épistémè perceives the order of things as essentially historical.