---
title: "1 Epistemological Quotes By Wilhelm Dilthey"
description: "1 Epistemological quotes by Wilhelm Dilthey. Plus more from Wilhelm Dilthey and more Epistemological sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7c6/wilhelm-dilthey-23833_acknowledge_to-attempt-this-would-be-like-seeing-wit_2540184.jpg"
---

> [To attempt this would be like seeing without eyes or directing the gaze of knowledge behind one's own eye. Modern science can acknowledge no other than this epistemological stand-point.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/to-attempt-this-would-be-like-seeing-without-eyes-or-directing-the/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7c6/wilhelm-dilthey-23833_acknowledge_to-attempt-this-would-be-like-seeing-wit_2540184.jpg)

## More by Wilhelm Dilthey

> [However, the sciences of society and of history retained their old subservient relation to metaphysics for a long time - well into the eighteenth…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/however-the-sciences-of-society-and-of-history-retained-their-old/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [All science is experiential; but all experience must be related back to and derives its its validity from the conditions and context of consciousness…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/all-science-is-experiential-but-all-experience-must-be-related-back/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [The existence of inherent limits of experience in no way settles the question about the subordination of facts of the human world to our…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/the-existence-of-inherent-limits-of-experience-in-no-way-settles-the/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [What man is, only his history tells.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/what-man-is-only-his-history-tells/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [“What is experienced from within cannot be categorized in concepts that have been developed for the external world of the senses.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/what-is-experienced-from-within-cannot-be-categorized-in-concepts/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [“We explain by means of purely intellectual processes, but we understand by means of the cooperation of all the powers of the mind in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/we-explain-by-means-of-purely-intellectual-processes-but-we/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [A knowledge of the forces that rule society, of the causes that have produced its upheavals, and of society's resources for promoting healthy progress…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/a-knowledge-of-the-forces-that-rule-society-of-the-causes-that-have/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [The sciences which take socio-historical reality as their subject matter are seeking, more intensively than ever before, their systematic relations to one another and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/the-sciences-which-take-socio-historical-reality-as-their-subject/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [Thus, in accordance with the spirit of the Historical School, knowledge of the principles of the human world falls within that world itself, and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/thus-in-accordance-with-the-spirit-of-the-historical-school-knowledge/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [From the perspective of mere representation, the external world always remains only a phenomenon.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/from-the-perspective-of-mere-representation-the-external-world-always/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [The individual always realizes only one of the possibilities in his development, which could always have taken a different turning whenever he had to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/the-individual-always-realizes-only-one-of-the-possibilities-in-his/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [Thus there arose in me both a need and a plan for the foundation of the human sciences.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/thus-there-arose-in-me-both-a-need-and-a-plan-for-the-foundation-of/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [If we conceive all the changes in the physical world as reducible to the motion of atoms, motions generated by means of the fixed…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/if-we-conceive-all-the-changes-in-the-physical-world-as-reducible-to/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [On the other hand, for the whole human being who wills, feels, and represents, external reality is given simultaneously and with as much certitude…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/on-the-other-hand-for-the-whole-human-being-who-wills-feels-and/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

> [No real blood flows in the veins of the knowing subject constructed by Locke, Hume, and Kant, but rather the diluted extract of reason…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/wilhelm-dilthey/no-real-blood-flows-in-the-veins-of-the-knowing-subject-constructed/)

[Wilhelm Dilthey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/wilhelm-dilthey/)

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