Always attempting to combine, in a non-paradoxical manner, the rational premisse that has defined anthropology as a project of science and the moral premisse that has led anthropologists to become the expert spokesmen for cultural relativism, the debates concerning the epistemology of anthropology are viciated by questions that allow for no answers in the terms suggested by the questions themselves. It is thus considered useful to adopt a reasoning strategy that is not guided by the objective of solving the paradoxes resulting from the effort to achieve a coherent combination of epistemological rationality and moral relativism, but one that rather dismisses such terms, so that, from a less restraining perspective, we may penetrate more perceivingly and fruitfully into the challenges of cultural understanding.

Max Scheler was one of the prominent thinkers of the early 20th century in Germany. However, his academic influence gradually waned, possibly due to his open rejection of National Socialism. I believe there is a need to revisit his novel ideas because of the insights they offer in understanding the nature of knowledge. By this, I mean that Scheler’s philosophy can possibly offer us insights in the field of epistemology. Although his philosophy is often understood within the limited context of ethics, I will show how he opened up new possibilities on understanding the nature of knowledge, and on how they can effectively answer to existing views.

The purpose of this chapter is to ask how Gadamer, in Truth and Method, deals with the challenge of relativism in historical thought and how he responds to the issues brought up by the constellation of philosophers he labels historicists. I argue that Gadamer misunderstands both historicism and the relativist challenges to which it responds. This double misunderstanding will shape his hermeneutic contribution in unwanted ways (including his notions of tradition and second nature to which Rorty, McDowell, Brandom, and other anglophone philosophers have recently turned).

Social epistemology is a burgeoning branch of contemporary epistemology. Since the 1970s, philosophers have taken an ever-increasing interest in such topics as the epistemic value of testimony, the nature and function of expertise, the proper distribution of cognitive labor and resources among individuals in communities, and the status of group reasoning and knowledge. This trend emerged against the resistance of the widely shared view that social considerations are largely irrelevant to epistemological concerns. The trend was stimulated by diverse approaches to the study of knowledge, in such fields as library science, educational theory, the sociology of science, and economics, and within philosophy itself, in the decades preceding the 1980s. To name only a few influences within philosophy, W. V. Quine promoted a naturalistic approach to knowledge, and many who accepted the relevance of nature to epistemology found it sensible to accept the relevance of social factors as well. Tho...

ABSTRACT In sociohistorical inquiry, no epistemology prevails as a widely accepted account of knowledge. Positivism yet retains its defenders. As alternatives, both structuralist and hermeneutic challenges to science are undermined as foundations of knowledge by their own accounts, yielding the postmodern loss of certitude. Conventionalism, rationalism, and realism have been proposed as “local epistemologies” under the new conditions, and on a broader level, pragmatic and transcendental theories of communication substitute for epistemology classically conceived. As yet, these contending developments do not resolve the crisis of sociohistorical knowledge.

The aim of the first text entitled «Hermeneutics and praxis» is to show the network of the most relevant concepts of philosophic hermeneutics and to present their inner essential interconnectedness with Aristotle's concept of practical philosophy. The elaboration of fundamental notions of prejudice, hermeneutical circle of tradition, situation, effective-historical consciousness, fusion of horizons and application can be found in the text. The explanation of the above mentioned notions intends to legitimize Gadamer's central thesis that our understanding is never mere subject-oriented behaviour. On the contrary, it is always historically limited. In this context, the notion of prejudice loses its negative connotation and represents not only the link with our tradition, but also the original source of all our judgements. Taking into consideration this notion as highly relevant, Gadamer intends to show that we can never fully escape from all of our prejudices, although it does not mean that we cannot encounter them critically. The ground for their understanding is exactly within our very historical being and union with our tradition. We cannot erase our own horizon when approaching someone else; we should rather find a common ground with them. Therefore, the process of understanding always has a dialogical character. The second text deals with the universal requirement of the method of natural sciences. Experiences of art, philosophy and social sciences (die Geisteswissenschaften) counterstrike it. One cannot recognize the meaning of social sciences once they are excluded from the horizon of praxis. Moreover, social sciences are moral sciences and the concept of progress, so common in the terminology of natural sciences, cannot be applied to them. Their very purpose is human self-understanding. At this point some possible consequences are being introduced, resulting from the standpoint of philosophic hermeneutics. Namely, the question of the possibility of rehabilitation of the practical phenomenon, as opposed to the methodological truth of natural sciences, is being problematised. Furthermore, an outline of some other crucial problems is given, such as revival of self-understanding of social sciences, universal competence of scientific experts and domain and objectives of contemporary education.