The historian, philosopher and sociologist Wilhelm Dilthey popularised the term, arguing that psychology and the emerging field of sociology – like the philological and historical disciplines – should be considered as Geisteswissenschaft rather than as Naturwissenschaft (natural science), and that their methodology should reflect this classification.
Since the times of Dilthey it became common to speak of the Naturwissenschaften on the one hand and the Geisteswissenschaften on the other – not particularly considering the status of mathematics and of philosophy itself.
Meanwhile, many of the German universities have split up these faculties in smaller departments, so that the old common interests and the old borders are less visible.
[1] In the context of methodology on the contrary it has been emphasised, that Geisteswissenschaften such as history and the philological disciplines, relying on empirical data (documents, books and utterances), along with psychology and the social sciences, have a common empirical character, which is essentially based on comprehension (Verstehen) or understanding of expressions of meaning.
[2] Other authors, like Rudolf Steiner, used the term Geisteswissenschaft in a historically quite distinct sense to refer to a proposed "Science of Spirit".