Hermeneutics and Science

Hermeneutics was elaborated as a specific art of understanding in humanities. The discovered paradigmatic, historical characteristics of scientific knowledge, and the role of rhetoric, interpretation and contextuality enabled us to use similar arguments in natural sciences too. In this way a new research field, the hermeneutics of science emerged based upon the works of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and Gadamer.
A dialogue between philosophers and scientists begins in this volume on hermeneutic approaches to physics, biology, ethology, mathematics and cognitive science. Scientific principles, methodologies, discourse, language, and metaphors are analyzed, as well as the role of the lay public and the legitimation of science. Different hermeneutical-phenomenological approaches to perception, experiments, methods, discovery and justification and the genesis of science are presented. Hermeneutics shed a new light on the incommensurability of paradigms, the possibility of translation and the historical understanding of science.

Inhalt

Introduction; D. Føllesdal. Opening Address: Hermeneutics and the Sciences; I.M. Fehér. 1: Philosophical Analyses. Perceptual Reasoning - Hermeneutics and Perception; D. Ihde. Productive Objectivity: The Hermeneutics of Performance in Experimental Inquiry; R.P. Crease. Parallelen zwischen Heideggers and Kuhns Wissenschaftsauffassung; T. Schwendtner. Kuhn, Scheler and the Revolutionary Genesis of Modern Science; G. Toronyai. Worum geht es in den Naturwissenschaften? M. Vajda. Interfaciology; O.E. Rössler. Friction of Bodies, Friction of Minds; Á. Heller. 2: History of Science. Wissenschaftsgeschichte als hermenutisches Problem; K.-O. Apel. Accomplishing Translation: The Notion of Evidence in the Discipline of the History of Science; G.L. Hardcastle. Meaningful Mistakes; O. Kiss. Incommensurability as a Bound of Hermeneutics in Science; A. Drago. 3: Scientific Aspects. The Hermeneutics of Life; G. Kampis. Was heißt Biologie verstehen? Vorüberlegungen zu einer hermeneutischen Biologie; R. Schulz. The Brain as a Hermeneutic Device; P. Érdi, I. Aradi. A Hermeneutical Ethology? S. Lijmbach. Heidegger and the Question of Physics; E. Giannetto. To What Extent Does Formal Teleology Still Make Sense? M. Stöltzner. 4: Language, Rhetoric, Community. The Changing of the Role Accorded to the Lay Public in Science; M. Fehér. To Eliminate Human Discourse by Means of the Metaphysical Language of Things; L. Fekete. Language and the Double Hermeneutic in Natural Science; M. Eger. Science, Hermeneutics, and Metaphorical Thought; M.J. Zenzen. 5: Philosophy of Science.Hermeneutics and Natural Science; D. Føllesdal. The Difference between Science and Hermeneutics: Habermas's Theory of the Necessarily Normative Nature of Linguistic Interpretation; D. Freundlieb. Against the Selfish Theory; L. Ropolyi. The Justification of the Application of Science; B. Gremmen. Value-Free Worlds and Value-Imposing Minds. Representational Practices and the Constructivist Argument; L.I. Komlósi. Closing Address: Expanding Hermeneutics; D. Ihde. List of Participants.