The view that our understanding of others is not gained by the tacit use of a ‘theory’, enabling us to infer what thoughts or intentions explain their actions, but by reliving the situation ‘in their shoes’ or from their point of view, and thereby understanding what they experienced and thought, and therefore expressed. Understanding others is achieved when we can ourselves deliberate as they did, and hear their words as if they are our own. The suggestion is a modern development of the verstehen tradition associated with Dilthey, Weber, and Collingwood . See also theory-theory.
Philosophy dictionary. Academic. 2011.