Essays in the Hermeneutics of Science

Published in 1997, this volume is written from a hermenutico-phenomenological point of view. The essays cover a spectrum of relevant issues: the essential interpretation of science; the possibility of a "strong hermeneutics of science" that takes into consideration science's cognitive structure; the implications of existential-ontological interpretations of science for the post-metaphysical dialogue between hermeneutics and epistomology; the place of rhetorical tools in the human sciences; and the strategies of overcoming the legitimation crisis of the human sciences. Because of its commitment to the radical universalization of the hermeneutic problem, the strong programme of hermeneutics of science, suggested in this book, avoids both objectivism and relativism. In this regard, the essays must be read in relation to the search for a middle way between defending epistemic rationality as a basis for futher development of the "project of modernity" and the postmodern deconstruction of all cognitive identities of modernity.