Hermeneutics and the Natural Sciences

philosophers with both hermeneutic-phenomenological and scientific back grounds (such as Heelan, Ihde, Theodore Kisiel, Joseph Kockelmans) have begun to read the work of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, and others as also entailing a positive re-evaluation of practices of the natural sciences. A few professional scientists with a scholarly background in hermeneutic phenomenological philosophy (among whom is Martin Eger) have begun to do the same. A number of more mainstream philosophers of science are utilizing hermeneutical insights effectively and perceptively (Joseph Rouse), while many sociologically-trained scholars who speak with the terminolo gy and often the assumptions of analytic philosophy reveal in their work a deep appreciation for the hermeneutical insight into the nature of his tori cally situated knowledge (Harry Collins, Bruno Latour, Andrew Pickering, Simon Schaffer, Steve Shapin and others inftuenced by social constructivism). of these initiatives manifest the rediscovery that all dis course is situat All ed culturally and historically. The days are gone when it could be seriously 2 debated whether a hermeneutical perspective on the natural sciences exists. The challenge remains today to understand more explicitly the hermeneutical dimension of the natural sciences in terms of an overarching hermeneutic of all knowledge.

Klappentext

This remarkable volume attests to the world-wide development of a hermeneutical approach to the natural sciences. Questions raised by the essays include: What is a phenomenology of `scientific' perception? How does meaning arise out of laboratory situations? How do individuals or groups come to terms with the particular problem situations in which they find themselves by drawing on the available conceptual and practical resources which structure these situations? The essays are organized around three central themes. One group of authors (Heelan, Kockelmans, and Gremmen/Jacobs) recalls and applies existing historical resources of hermeneutical phenomenology to current scientific and social issues. A second group (Kisiel, Eger) considers the differences between a specifically hermeneutical approach to science and related approaches such as cultural studies and social constructivism. A third group (Ihde, Gendlin) seeks to forge new directions and tools for understanding natural scientific practice. As Crease's introductory essay makes plain, the authors share the commitment of hermeneutical philosophy to the priority of meaning over technique, the primacy of the practical over the theoretical, and the priority of situation over abstract formulation. In the process, the authors revive and transform the ancient Greek idea that the key to living well, to being fully and authentically human, resides primarily in the exercise of the practical not the theoretical virtues, in the art of doing well in the workworld and acting well in the polis.

Inhalt
Hermeneutics and the Natural Sciences: Introduction.- Why a hermeneutical philosophy of the natural sciences?.- On the hermeneutical nature of modern natural science.- Understanding Sustainability.- A hermeneutics of the natural sciences? The debate updated.- Achievements of the hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to natural science.- Thingly hermeneutics: Technoconstructions.- The responsive order: A new empiricism.