This paper proposes a reexamination of a central question related to the method of the human sciences in their foundational contexts as inaugurated by Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) by means of an analysis of the Understanding/Explanation (Verstehen/Erklärung) duality. Two patterns are in the background of this duality: the psychological which refers to the internal structure of mental experience as an autonomous aggregation containing the main elements of consciousness; and the hermeneutical which is based on a reading of the signs, traces, and features manifested through the relation to the other and configured in institutions, texts, and writings that are saturated with signification and meaning and express the individual and collective experiences and forms of life in a historical context. Our hypothesis is that the well-known distinction between understanding and explanation is not definitive or categorical, between the world of nature and the world of man, society, and history, but an operational and methodological artifact unifying the objective field of the human sciences.