of unity among the sciences (p. 44).

It is difiicult to see how a unification of

the sciences could be brought about by a comparative study of views new and
old, scientific and unscientific.
The second question, as Edel asks it, is Under what conditions would
it be possible to structure ethics as a scientific-enterprise rather than as an
art-enterprise or a practical enterprise of some sort? (p. 47, his hyphens). T o
which we could only suppose an answer to be conceivable if we knew what
it would be like to apply scientific method in ethics and this we are never
told. All that we are told is that scientific method can be applied to the
question of the existential linkage of moral concepts, but only to those moral
concepts which have such a link (as though there could be some which have
none at all, as if there were some moral concepts which can never be applied).
This merely assures us that scientific method can be applied to moral con-
cepts without telling us how to set about it. Edel reproaches linguistic
analysts with treating these concepts as having a jolb to do, as being practical
rather than scientific (p. 55). But since these concepts have a job to do and
since they are practical this seems to be eminently reasonable. In any case
he gives no content to his allegedly scientific alternative.
AU of this leads up to the central problem of determinism. In spite of
his elaborate preliminaries Edel has nothing more to offer than suggestions
toward a strategy for the solution of the problem. He assumes without
question that science is once and for all committed to a determinism which
precludes all responsibility. Having said that more science will only reinforce
determinism he then asks if any scientific treatment of the difficulty is
possible! He fails to see the vicious circle and goes on to suggest that we
should try to resolve the difficulty by scientifically collecting phenomeno-
logical data about feeling free and the like, by a scientific revision of our
theoretical categories, and by a search for causal explanations. By the
scientific collection of phenomenological data he means collection without
commitment to a theory, and this, even if it were possible, would not be
scientific. Of the three suggested methods, only the last is recognisably
scientific and would be of no avail since by the same vicious circle any
explanation which was offered would be deterministic.
JOHN TUCKER

MEANING IN HISTORY: W. Diltheys thoughts on History and Society

edited and introduced by H. P. Rickman. George Allen & Unwin, 1961.
170 pp. 20s.

Few students of philosophy in this country know much about Dilthey, though
his ideas continue to command attention in many other parts of the world.
One reason for their neglect here is that hitherto only a few scattered passages
of this authors writings have been available in English. Nor is this fact to be
ascribed exclusively to ignorance or insularity: the problem for the trans-
lator of Dilthey begins when he asks himself what to translate. For Dilthey,
in his later years in particular, was endlessly dissatisfied with what he wrote
and constantly beginning his projects afresh; even when he brought himself
to send something to the printer he began work at once on what he termed
a continuation but which turned out to be a further attempt to cover the
same ground. The result is that there is no complete or definitive text to
which we can turn for the expression of his philosophical views : we have the
choice of reading his voluminous remains in bulk or not reading him at all.
Mr Rickman has sought to overcome these difficulties by selecting and
juxtaposing according to subject passages from vol. VII of Diltheys
Collected Works, which contains his most mature thoughts on history and
the social sciences. He reproduces about a quarter of Diltheys somewhat
repetitious text, in extracts which vary in length from a few lines to several
pages, and adds a 50-page general introduction as well as brief introductions
to each of the main sections. The interest of the matter translated is certainly
not in doubt. Dilthey argued that the whole sphere of human relations,
personal and social, was penetrated with meaning, just because it constituted
an expression of what human beings thought and felt, and that accordingly
it was profoundly different in structure from the natural world (altogether
less loose and separate in its parts) and knowable in a different way. The
mind-affected world, as he called it, could be understood from within, as
no part of nature could possibly be. Dilthey was under no illusions about
the difficulties involved in attaining this sort of understanding: it is signi-
ficant, for instance, that he saw a special problem in the discovery of in-
dividual motives and even suggested (see e.g. pp. 164-5) that historians
should neglect them. Nor, despite a certain tendency to couple Verstehen
with Einfiihlung, is there any real evidence that he identified the former with
intuition. We are not conscious of any deduction from which this under-
standing could have arisen, nor is it aninference from an effect to a cause
(p. 119). Yet logically it can be represented as an argument from analogy
( h i d . ) : it is because we are familiar with the expressions in which ow own
thoughts are embodied that we can successfully reconstitute the mental life
of others. Hence the possibility of history is in a sense given in the possibility
of autobiography: what a man does in presenting rhe events of his own
life as meaningful does not differ in principle from what historians do.
The relevance of these ideas to recent discussions in the philosophy of
the social sciences will be apparent; so will objections to some of them.
Unfortunately Mr Rickman notices neither the parallels nor the difficulties.
He sees his business as being with the general reader rather than the p r e
fessional philosopher, and to that end concentrates most on the bearing of
Diltheys ideas on popular debates about meaning in history. But he writes
clearly and sensibly at his own level, and his book should both be useful in
itself and stimulate further interest in its subject.
W. H. WALSH

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