Wilhelm Dilthey's philosophical framework emphasizes the concept of reexperiencing (or Wiedererleben), where one profoundly connects to the essence of a prior experience, personal or observed, through an empathetic and reflective process. This reexperiencing combines lived experience (Eleni’s) with understanding to express a nuanced life not restricted to the limits of the immediate reality. In this essay, I will show how Dilthey's idea of reexperiencing works by sharing my own experience, and then I will analyze its philosophical roots and broader significance.
Dilthey describes re-experiencing as a profound re-engagement with an event, imbuing it with deeper life value by relating it to the entirety of one’s existence. He argues, “As parts of a larger whole, lived experiences are internally related to each other” (Owensby 503). This notion resonates with a recent re-experiencing I had related to my hobby of rock-climbing. I have been an avid rock-climber for a few years now. However, a recent injury and a conversation with my sports doctor made me re-evaluate what it was that drew me to the sport despite the relative safety risks. This reflection brought back two very early memories of my childhood, one in which my dad lost hold of me while I reached for a door, and a second where I fell from a jungle gym after climbing up. These events created an innate fear of falling within me. It is fitting then, that my chosen sport is one that allows me to symbolically re-conquer said fear.
This reexperiencing takes its cue from Dilthey’s point that life and its events comprise something more than external facts; life and its events embody significance, relationships, and emotional resonance that is interpretable in a different way later on. "The poet," he says, "addressed himself to what is significant." An event becomes a symbol, and later a bearer, of something universal when the relation of life, value, and significance are raised to the level of the typical through memory, life experience, and the content of intellect (Owensby 504). Dilthey's observations also apply to reexperiencing daily life while speaking of poetry.
In addition, this framework denies any purely naturalistic explanation for human experience. Dilthey points out positivism was a critique of his idea that events can only be reduced to mechanical causality and that they are imbued with meaning. Instead, they are woven into the web of life relations, and we are constantly creating new patterns of these relations with our web of feelings and thoughts regarding them.
Such a recursive engagement with experience fits into a broader project Dilthey has in mind of understanding human life as an interpretative one. He contrasts this view with mechanical approaches to knowledge, arguing that the "inner formative laws" of lived experience resist being fully captured by scientific abstractions (Dilthey, The Essence of Philosophy 232).
Thus, Dilthey’s concept of reexperiencing then reveals itself as a strong heuristic for unravelling the various layers of meaning that uphold human existence. As we connect with the human, emotional, and intellectual essence of past experiences, we develop a far greater sense of purpose and connectivity.