Ontological Difference and Indeterminacy of Interpretation

At issue in this paper is the unfinished dialogue between hermeneutic phenomenology and hermeneutic logic. The paper touches upon two historical contexts of this dialogue. In scrutinizing them I discuss the relationship between philosophical hermeneutics and non-representationalist epistemology. The view gets spelled out that the norms of truthfulness, objectivity, empirical adequacy, and other epistemological characteristics of interpretation become generated within characteristic hermeneutic situations. By elaborating on Heidegger’s nexus between projected understanding and interpretative articulation, the notion of hermeneutic forestructuring of interpretative practices is introduced. Scrutinizing this notion allows one to circumscribe characteristic hermeneutic situations.At issue in this paper is the unfinished dialogue between hermeneutic phenomenology and hermeneutic logic. The paper touches upon two historical contexts of this dialogue. In scrutinizing them I discuss the relationship between philosophical hermeneutics and non-representationalist epistemology. The view gets spelled out that the norms of truthfulness, objectivity, empirical adequacy, and other epistemological characteristics of interpretation become generated within characteristic hermeneutic situations. By elaborating on Heidegger’s nexus between projected understanding and interpretative articulation, the notion of hermeneutic forestructuring of interpretative practices is introduced. Scrutinizing this notion allows one to circumscribe characteristic hermeneutic situations.El tema de este artículo es el diálogo inacabado entre la fenomenología hermenéutica y la lógica hermenéutica. El artículo toma dos contextos históricos de este diálogo. Al investigarlos, discuto la relación entre la hermenéutica filosófica y la epistemología no-representacionalista. Esta visión explica que las normas de veracidad, la objetividad, la adecuación empírica y otras características epistemológicas de la interpretación llegan a generarse dentro de situaciones hermenéuticas características. Al elaborar el nexo de Heidegger entre la comprensión proyectada y la articulación interpretativa, se introduce la noción de preestructuración hermenéutica de las prácticas interpretativas. Investigar esta noción permite circunscribir situaciones hermenéuticas características

The Natural Ontological Attitude in a Hermeneutic Context

My aim in this paper is to re-examine Arthur Fine’s concept of the natural ontological attitude. Whereas earlier critical interpretations focus on the compatibility of NOA with scientific realism, I argue that Fine’s conception is to be recast in terms of an interpretative theory of scientific research. Specifically, I make the case that the hermeneutic reformulation of NOA is unavoidable when at stake are the issues of the structural, conceptual, and experimental articulation of scientific domain. The paper concludes by considering the formation of local epistemological positions in the research process

Interpretive Internalism In The Time Of Technoscience

This paper argues that scientific inquiry (1) creates its own cognitive autonomy within the interplay of research practices and possibilities for doing research, and (2) discloses, meaningfully articulates, and procedurally objectifies reality in a unique manner. Taken together, both claims characterize the position of hermeneutic realism which lays foundations for the radically anti-foundationalist hermeneutic philosophy of science. Claim (1) opens a subject of meta-epistemological studies aiming at a complementarity between a hermeneutic theory of the facticity of scientific inquiry as a mode of being and an epistemological theory that works out in its own terms the conditions for having science’s cognitive specificity, whereas claim (2) is a necessary presupposition for studying how reality becomes meaningfully articulated within scientific practices. The position of hermeneutic realism is on a par with the thesis of interpretive internalism stating that the cognitive autonomy of scientific inquiry is achieved through the openness of inquiry to its milieus. This openness consists in a selective assimilation of external themes, goals, tasks, and other items. The paper also deals with some socio-political consequences from the thesis of interpretive internalism. It is argued that only scientific inquiry freed from social monitoring and political control is able to serve societal needs, preventing at the same time a politically initiated scientification of societies, i.e. a scientification guided by dubious economic and political interests, and accomplished through sciences that are not able to preserve their cognitive autonomy, thereby becoming exposed to manipulation and misuse

Ontological Difference and Indeterminacy of Interpretation

At issue in this paper is the unfinished dialogue between hermeneutic phenomenology and hermeneutic logic. The paper touches upon two historical contexts of this dialogue. In scrutinizing them I discuss the relationship between philosophical hermeneutics and nonrepresentationalist epistemology. The view gets spelled out that the norms of truthfulness, objectivity, empirical adequacy, and other epistemological characteristics of interpretation become generated within characteristic hermeneutic situations. By elaborating on Heidegger’s nexus between projected understanding and interpretative articulation, the notion of hermeneutic fore-structuring of interpretative practices is introduced. Scrutinizing this notion allows one to circumscribe characteristic hermeneutic situations.El tema de este artículo es el diálogo inacabado entre la fenomenología hermenéutica y la lógica hermenéutica. El artículo toma dos contextos históricos de este diálogo. Al investigarlos, discuto la relación entre la hermenéutica filosófica y la epistemología norepresentacionalista. Esta visión explica que las normas de veracidad, la objetividad, la adecuación empírica y otras características epistemológicas de la interpretación llegan a generarse dentro de situaciones hermenéuticas características. Al elaborar el nexo de Heidegger entre la comprensión proyectada y la articulación interpretativa, se introduce la noción de pre-estructuración hermenéutica de las prácticas interpretativas. Investigar esta noción permite circunscribir situaciones hermenéuticas características

The Universality of Hermeneutics in Joseph Kockelmans’s Version of Hermeneutic Phenomenology

There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the ontological assumptions of basic scientifi c theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontology. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein . It is rather the idea that the very metaphysics of knowledge should seek to make sense of the ontological categories by having recourse to the interrelations of Dasein and Sosein within the scope of scientifi c knowledge. A true “Philosophy of Nature” cannot avoid addressing the revealing of nature’s being in these interrelations. Professor Kockelmans’s subsequent transformation of Hartmann’s concept of Dasein in terms of ek-sistence as a pre-categorial way of being opened the avenue to hermeneutic phenomenology. The constitution of meaning is the “facticity which the theory of categories presupposes, being unable at the same time to refl ect upon it. Yet important motifs of a categorial metaphysics of knowledge were retained in the new philosophical project. These motifs precisely informed the desire for a rehabilitation of the Greek episteme within the ontological framework. Still in his Dutch period, Professor Kockelmans adopted the view that philosophy is neither a meta-scientifi c world-view nor can it be “naturalized” by recasting its problematic in scientifi c terms and languages. The constitution of meaning in human ek-sistence is the subject which philosophy has to address. Philosophy can master this task by developing a kind of hermeneutic ontology that leaves enough room for epistemological investigations. It is the rehabilitation of the Greek episteme that provides the chance for reconciling such investigations with the ontological search for meaning constitution and truth as un-concealment

The Universality of Hermeneutics in Joseph Kockelmans’s Version of Hermeneutic Phenomenology

In an autobiographical sketch, Joseph Kockelmans (2008) reflects on his Denkweg in a manner that allows him to delineate the profile of his version of hermeneutic phenomenology. Based essentially on this sketch, I should like in what follows to bring into focus three principal moments of his “journey into phenomenological philosophy” that allude to his idea of the universality of interpretation in all culturally specified modes of being-in-the-world. I will call these moments respectively (a) the phenomenological reformulation of the Greek episteme; (b) the integration of the ontological difference in the theory of scientific truth; and (c) the historicity of objectifying thematization. There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the ontological assumptions of basic scientific theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontology. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein. It is rather the idea that the very metaphysics of knowledge should seek to make sense of the ontological categories by having recourse to the interrelations of Dasein and Sosein within the scope of scientific knowledge. A true “Philosophy of Nature” cannot avoid addressing the revealing of nature’s being in these interrelations. Professor Kockelmans’s subsequent transformation of Hartmann’s concept of Dasein in terms of ek-sistence as a pre-categorial way of being opened the avenue to hermeneutic phenomenology. [...

Textualising beyond Rorty’s textualism

While supporting radical anti-essentialism and the primacy of practical choices in delineating objects of inquiry, this paper spells out the constellation ‘beliefspractices-meaning-objects-inquiry-texts-interpretation’ in a manner alternative to that suggested by Rorty’s strong textualism based on the conception of ‘inquiry as recontextualisation’. The perspective of hermeneutic phenomenology on the constitution of meaning is applied in the analysis of that constellation. Scientific inquiry is presented as a process of textualising contextualised in configurations of ‘readable technologies’. The approach to the constitution of contextual units in scientific inquiry by reading theoretical objects forges arguments for the position of hermeneutic realism as opposed to epistemological behaviourism.South African Journal of Philosophy 2014, 33(3): 285–29

The Universality of Hermeneutics in Joseph Kockelmans’ Version of Hermeneutic Phenomenology

There is in Professor Kockelmans’s works from the 1950s a gradual transition from Nikolai Hartmann’s theory of the ontological modalities and categories (addressed in its capacity to serve as a prerequisite for reconstructing the ontological assumptions of basic scientifi c theories) to a kind of hermeneutic ontology. This transition is especially palpable in his reading of Hartmann’s “Philosophy of Nature.” In Hartmann’s categorial metaphysics of knowledge Dasein and Sosein (as ways of being) are subordinated to the modes and spheres of being. The transition was by no means accomplished via a direct borrowing of Heidegger’s concept of Dasein . It is rather the idea that the very metaphysics of knowledge should seek to make sense of the ontological categories by having recourse to the interrelations of Dasein and Sosein within the scope of scientifi c knowledge. A true “Philosophy of Nature” cannot avoid addressing the revealing of nature’s being in these interrelations. Professor Kockelmans’s subsequent transformation of Hartmann’s concept of Dasein in terms of ek-sistence as a pre-categorial way of being opened the avenue to hermeneutic phenomenology. The constitution of meaning is the “facticity which the theory of categories presupposes, being unable at the same time to refl ect upon it. Yet important motifs of a categorial metaphysics of knowledge were retained in the new philosophical project. These motifs precisely informed the desire for a rehabilitation of the Greek episteme within the ontological framework. Still in his Dutch period, Professor Kockelmans adopted the view that philosophy is neither a meta-scientifi c world-view nor can it be “naturalized” by recasting its problematic in scientifi c terms and languages. The constitution of meaning in human ek-sistence is the subject which philosophy has to address. Philosophy can master this task by developing a kind of hermeneutic ontology that leaves enough room for epistemological investigations. It is the rehabilitation of the Greek episteme that provides the chance for reconciling such investigations with the ontological search for meaning constitution and truth as un-concealment

Universalizing hermeneutics as hermeneutic realism

This article explores and attempts to resolve some issues that arise when at stake is the incommensurability between the concepts of reality developed by philosophical hermeneutics, on the one hand, and realist branches of analytical philosophy, on the other. The view of hermeneutic realism is suggested not as a remedy against this incommensurability, but as a vehicle for revising those aspects of both hermeneutics and ontological realism which impede the dialogue between them. It is a view that opposes epistemological foundationalism, Cartesian dualism, essentialism about theoretical objects, and cognitive relativism. The role of reading/textualizing in science's spaces of representation is specified.Este artigo explora e tenta resolver algumas questões que surgem quando está em questão a incomensurabilidade entre os conceitos de realidade desenvolvidos pela hermenêutica filosófica, por um lado, e ramos realistas da filosofia analítica, por outro. A concepção do realismo hermenêutico é sugerida não como um remédio contra a incomensurabilidade, mas como um veículo para revisar aqueles aspectos tanto da hermenêutica quanto do realilsmo ontológico que impedem o diálogo entre eles. É uma concepção que se opõe ao fundacionalismo epistemológico, dualismo cartesiano, essencialismo sobre objetos teóricos, e relativismo cognitivo. O papel de ler/textualizar nos espaços de representação da ciência especificad