A hermeneutics of the natural sciences? The debate updated

Continental Philosophy Review

Volumn 30, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 329-341

  Kisiel, Theodore ^a  

^a NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 33847307987     PISSN: 13872842     EISSN: 15731103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (The University of Chicago Press, 2nd enlarged edition, 1970), p. 204.
2. For an on-the-spot account of the "hermeneutic situation" in the philosophy of science in that heady and tumultuous time of initial transformation in the sixties and seventies - along with Kuhn, names like Feyerabend, Hanson, Polanyi, and Toulmin constituted the first wave - see Theodore Kisiel, "Bericht: New Philosophies of Science in the USA: A Selective Survey," Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 5 (1974), pp. 138-191.
3. Even the most appropriate and telling translations of its most basic terms, let alone a proper understanding of the fundamentals of Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology, in order to allow its full potential for application to the philosophy of science to come to fruition, remains a desideratum among practitioners of the hermeneutics of the natural sciences. For the line of translation being followed here, see my various contributions to The Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement, Donald M. Borchert, Editor in Chief (New York Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996), especially "Hermeneutic Phenomenology," "Historicity," "Ontology and Fundamental Ontology," "Temporality and Time," and "World."
4. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, Second Revised Edition, translations revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1994). Hereafter TM.
5. Jean Grondin, "Zur Komposition von 'Wahrheit und Methode'," Dilthey-Jahrbuch 8 (1992-93): pp. 57-74, esp. p. 62f.
6. Hermann von Helmholtz, Science and Culture: Popular and Philosophical Essays, edited and with an Introduction by David Cahan (The University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 76-95. Hereafter HH. The revival of the work of Helmholtz for hermeneutically minded philosophers of science has been promoted especially by Reinhard Schulz (Oldenburg), in a series of papers presented at the recent conferences of the International Society for Hermeneutics and Science.
7. Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (London: Oxford UP, 1972), esp. in Chapter 4, "On the Theory of the Objective Mind."
8. James Farr, "Popper's Hermeneutics," Philosophy of the Social Sciences 13 (1983): pp. 157-176, with Comments by several parties pp. 177-201, including Karl Otto-Apel, pp. 183-193. Although this discussion is directed toward a hermeneutics of the social sciences, it is replete with hints of application to situations of discovery in the natural sciences.
9. The occasion was a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy at Northwestern University (Evanston) on October 24, 1969. It has been published in two languages: Theodore Kisiel, "Scientific Discovery: Logical, Psychological, or Hermeneutical?" Explorations in Phenomenology, edited by David Carr and Edward Casey (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), pp. 217-234;
10. "Zu einer Hermeneutik naturwissenschaftlicher Entdeckung" Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 2 (1971): 195-221.
11. The axial parameters of a "Daseinsanalytical" approach to scientific discovery are outlined and exemplified especially in Theodore Kisiel, "The Rationality of Scientific Discovery," Theodore F. Geraets (ed,), Rationality Today/Rationalité Aujourd'hui (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1979), pp. 401-411.
12. This was the title of Patrick Heelan's paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy at Duquesne University (Pittsburgh) on October 25, 1972. A synopsis of this paper, my commentary, and Heelan's reply are to be found in Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 5 (1974): pp. 123-137.
13. See also my review of Heelan's book Space-Perception and the Philosophy of Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983),
14. in Man and World 18 (1985): pp. 347-351.
15. Gyorgy Markus, "Why is There No Hermeneutics of Natural Sciences? Some Preliminary Theses," Science in Context 1, 1 (1987): pp. 5-51. Hereafter GM.
16. Patrick Heelan, "Yes! There is a Hermeneutics of Natural Science: A Rejoinder to Markus," Science in Context 3, 2 (1989): pp. 477-488.
17. Joseph Rouse, Knowledge and Power: Toward a Political Philosophy of Science (Ithaca/London: Cornell UP, 1987).
18. Robert P. Crease, The Play of Nature: Experimentation as Performance (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1993).
19. Patrick A. Heelan, "The New Relevance of Experiment: A Postmodern Problem," Lee Hardy and Lester Embree (editors), Phenomenology of Natural Science (Dordrechtl Boston/London: Kluwer, 1992), pp. 197-213.
20. See my review of this collection of conference papers in Isis 84, 1 (1993): pp. 189-190.
21. Joseph Rouse, Engaging Science: How to Understand its Practices Philosophically. (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1996).
22. The fusion of American pragmatism with continental hermeneutics that Rouse follows is best characterized in the following works: Hubert Dreyfus, "Holism and Hermeneutics," Review of Metaphysics 34 (1980): pp. 3-23; Mark Okrent, Heidegger's Pragmatism (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988).
23. Andrew Pickering The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science (The University of Chicago Press, 1995).
24. Joseph Rouse, "Bericht: New Philosophies of Science in North America - Twenty Years Later A Selective Survey," Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 27, no. 2 (1997), forthcoming.
25. Jitendra N. Mohanty, "Phenomenology," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement, op. cit., pp. 399-401.
26. See Joseph J. Kockelmans, Ideas for a Hermeneutic Phenomenology of the Natural Sciences (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, 1993).