Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics is opposed to the claims of positivism & empiricism that all scientific knowlege can be explained in the manner of the natural & physical sciences. A review of contemporary positions in hermeneutics shows a general belief that the study of human action is circular, unlike the st...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social research 1980-12, Vol.47 (4), p.649-671
Main Author: HOY, DAVID COUZENS
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Act/Acts/Action/Actionalism
Epistemology
Hermeneutic/Hermeneutics
Historicism
Holism
Human sciences
Human/Humans/Humanity
Humans
Metaphysics
Positivism
Social research
Social sciences
Transcendental philosophy
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Summary:Hermeneutics is opposed to the claims of positivism & empiricism that all scientific knowlege can be explained in the manner of the natural & physical sciences. A review of contemporary positions in hermeneutics shows a general belief that the study of human action is circular, unlike the study of the natural world; human understanding involves self-knowledge, which extends beyond a mere record of subjective experience assumed by behaviorists. Hermeneutics thus values subjective knowledge in human relations & understanding, while insisting on objectivity in the study of human values, which is the basis of its claim to scientific status. Hermeneuticists such as Hubert L. Dreyfus ("Holism and Hermeneutics," Review of Metaphysics, 1980, 34, Sept, 3-23) & Charles Taylor ("Understanding in Human Science," Review of Metaphysics, 1980, 34, Sept, 25-38) believe that an essential difference between humans & objects must be understood in the science of human behavior; however, Richard Roty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1979) disagrees with this nature/spirit distinction in human interpretation, & views human description as more a matter of vocabulary, than essential, change. Most contemporary philosophers would do well to criticize their own lines of inquiry. D. Dunseath.
ISSN:0037-783X