Hermeneutic Philosophy of Science

Abstract: Fleck’s Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact foregrounds claims traditionally excluded from reception, often regarded as opposed to fact, scientific claims that are increasingly seldom discussed in connection with philosophy of science save as examples of pseudo-science. I am especially concerned with scientists, like Peter Duesberg, who question the epidemiological link between HIV and AIDS and who are thereby discounted—no matter their credentials, no matter the cogency of their arguments, no matter the sobriety of their statistics—but also with other classic examples of so-called pseudo-science including homeopathy and other sciences, such as cold fusion. The pseudo-science version of the demarcation problem turns out to include some of the details that Latour articulates multifariously under a variety of species or kinds in his essay/interactive research project/monograph, ‘Biography of an Investigation’. Given the economic constraints of the current day, especially in the academy, the growing trend in almost all disciplines is that of suppression by threat: say what everyone else says or you won’t be hired (tenured/published/cited). In this way, non-citation of outlier views generates what Kuhn called normal science. Finally, a review of Lewontin’s discussion of biology shows the continuing role of ideology by bringing in some of the complex issues associated with the resistant bacteria (tuberculosis, Lyme disease, syphilis) and AIDS.

"ABSTRACT:
    This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of sexuation integrated with his work in discourse theory and topology.
    Part I places this study into context by examining scholarship from the established fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology, (post)structuralism, aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis in order to extract out their respective theory of meaning. These theories reveal that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation and reaches near crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand this crisis is mollified by the rise of Heideggerian-Gadamerian hermeneutical phenomenology which questions traditional epistemological approaches to the text using a new ontological conceptualization of meaning and a conscious rejection of methodology. On the other hand this crisis is exacerbated when the ubiquitous nature of meaning is itself challenged by (post)structuralism's discovery of the signifier which inscribes a limit to meaning, and by the domains of sense and nonsense newly opened up by aesthetic theory. These historical developments culminate in the field of psychoanalysis which most consequentially delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity.
    Part II extends these findings by rigorously constructing out of the Lacanian sexuated formulae a decidedly non-hermeneutical phenomenological approach useful in demonstrating the sexual nature of meaning. Explicated in their static state by way of an account of their original derivation from the Aristotelian logical square, it is argued that these four formulae are relevant to basic concerns of textual theory inclusive of the hermeneutical circle of meaning. These formulae are then set into motion by integrating them with Lacan's four discourses to demonstrate the breakdown of meaning. Finally, the cuts and sutures of two-dimensional space that is topology as set down in L'étourdit are performed to confirm how the very field of meaning is ultimately suspended from a nonsensical singular point known in Lacanian psychoanalysis as objet a. The contention is that by occupying this point the subject frees himself from the debilitating grip of meaning."

Heidegger and Gadamer are typically read by different scholars of religion. Heidegger tends to be read by philosophers of religion examining his contribution to matters of doubt, existential finitude, and atheism. Gadamer tends to be read by those with an interest in interpreting the Bible, especially by those with more confessional or epistemically optimistic sensibilities. In both cases, Heidegger and Gadamer have well-established associations with specific theological positions.

Sacred Language, Sacred World challenges this arrangement by re-reading the primary texts as theological resources; the book defends an alternative theological appropriation of their philosophical work through a close engagement with portions of their argument.

What emerges is an account of the unity of tradition, reason, and scriptural language. This account goes beyond claims of their relatedness, which are uncontroversial, and advances the stronger argument that they name the very same thing. Although initially counterintuitive, the central task set by both Heidegger and Gadamer is the investigation of that one phenomenon. This argument challenges the pervasive image in which Christians rely on ‘tradition’ to ‘reason’ about the meaning of ‘scripture’. It puts into question the injunction that theologians should balance the resources of scripture, tradition, and reason.

Sacred Language, Sacred World offers an account of Christian life as more fundamental than certain entities which are distilled out of it, namely: scripture, tradition and reason.

http://bloomsbury.com/uk/sacred-language-sacred-world-9780567664884/

Una breve analisi di alcuni saggi scritti da Hans George Gadamer uno dei più eminenti allievi di Martin Heidegger e filosofo della disciplina ermeneutica. L'autore analizza in quest'opera il percorso filosofico che conduce il giovane Heidegger di Essere e Tempo all'ultima fase del suo intrigante filosofare che è quella che segue il momento della 'svolta' in cui il significato dell'orizzonte di Tempo ed Essere assumono nuovi significati nell'orizzonte umano.

Continental philosophy of science has developed alongside mainstream analytic philosophy of science. But where continental approaches are inclusive, analytic philosophies of science are not– and they exclude not merely Nietzsche’s philosophy of science but Gödel’s philosophy of
physics. As a radicalization of Kant, Nietzsche’s critical philosophy of science puts science in question and Nietzsche’s critique of the methodological foundations of classical philology
bears on science, particularly evolution as well as style (in art and science). In addition to the critical (in Mach, Nietzsche, Heidegger but also Husserl just to the extent that continental
philosophy of science tends to depart from a reflection on the crisis of foundations), other continental philosophies of science include phenomenology (Husserl, Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty, etc.) and hermeneutics (Heidegger, Gadamer, Heelan, etc.), especially incorporating history of science (Nietzsche, Mach, Duhem, Butterfield, Feyerabend, etc.). Examples are drawn from the philosophy of sciences (chemistry, geology, and biology) other than physics.

Themes discussed include a hermeneutic of hermeneutic philosophy of science, along with the hegemony of analytic style in university philosophy in the US and Europe as well as the rhetoric of power, highlighting the politics of mockery using as illustration Alan Sokal's hoax as this sought to secure the exclusion of other voices in the academy, especially within philosophy of science. In addition to reviewing Sokal's attack on Bruno Latour, Latour's own " biography " of an investigation is read as articulating a doubled hermeneutic reflection on modernity including both field ethnography and lab-ethnography. The further question of the viability of a hermeneutics of science in general, both natural and social is raised, thematising Patrick Heelan's " readable technologies " as metaphor for scientific research practice. Including a discussion of peer review and the editorial vicissitudes of journal publication, this chapter also addresses the politics of scientific models using the metaphor of immortality, zombie-style.

"In this far-reaching essay, historian Michael Edward Moore examines modernity as an historical epoch following the end of the medieval period – and as a “messianic concept of time.” In the early twentieth century, a debate over the meaning and origins of modernity unfolded among the philosophers Ernst Cassirer, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hans Blumenberg. These thinkers tried to resolve the puzzle of the fifteenth-century master Nicholas of Cusa. Was Cusanus the last great medieval thinker, his ideas a summa of medieval tradition? Or was he a mysterious epochal figure, seated at one end of the bridge leading to modern thought? Nicholas of Cusa lived during a time of historical and existential crisis, or kairos, when medieval governments and cherished sources of unity were shaken. Likewise, the debate over his significance took place during a later phase of crisis for Europe, in the decades before and after the Second World War, when the collapse of European civilization was witnessed. Moore argues that modernity, so intently examined as an historical and spiritual problem, has significance for our contemporary sense of crisis."

Diversity in the Structure of Christian Reasoning examines the effect of Christian commitments on rationality. When Christians read scripture, traditions supply concepts that shape what counts as normal, good, and true. This book offers an account of how different communities produce divergent readings of the Bible. It considers two examples from World Christianity, first a Bakongo community in central Africa, and then a Tamil bishop in southern India. Each case displays a relation between tradition and reason that reconfigures the hermeneutical picture developed by Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. To see what transpires when readers decide about a correct interpretation, this book offers theologians and scholars of religion a fresh strategy that keeps in view the global character of modern Christianity.
http://www.brill.com/products/book/diversity-structure-christian-reasoning

Asked to edit and critically review the exchange between philosopher Rafael Capurro and Linda Treude on the concept of information, the below linked document presents the final version of the exchange, including my contributions to copy and content editing as well as bibliographic suggestions from my review. The final version of the document can be accessed at http://www.capurro.de/moraes.html

- Jared Bielby


"The term information is omnipresent in academic research as well as in everyday life. Buzz words such as information society, information age or information overload are floating around everywhere. But what do we mean exactly with 'information' in different contexts?

The philosopher Rafael Capurro dealt with this question in the late 1970's in his PhD thesis on the concept of information. Especially the philosophical community was suffering at that time from a lack of reflection thereupon. Capurro tried to fill this gap. The following remark by the physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1912-2007) had a particular impact on him.

"Today we are getting accustomed [...] to understand information as something different from matter and consciousness. What we have discovered is an old truth in a new place. It is the Platonic eidos, the Aristotelian form, expressed in words such that also a human being in the 20th century can learn about them."

Weizsäcker’s step back to the history of ideas motivated Capurro also to deal with ethical issues of the information society particularly since the rise of the internet. The handling of digital information requires new cultural skills that are addressed with the term 'information literacy.' In the last ten years many projects in the Library and Information Science field (LIS) include or are even focused on information literacy (IL). In many of these projects there is a pre-understanding that IL has to do with the ability to find, filter, and process digital information. At the same time, there is a gap between this pre-understanding and an the ongoing academic discussion on the concept of information. The following dialogue deals particularly with this gap."

~ Linda Treude

This paper explores how hermeneutics views the relationship between themes/ideas/concepts/rules and the arising of the individual case. The individual case does not just "fall under" a theme or category. The cases that are of interest in hermeneutics are ones that call the theme or category to account for itself. This "calling to account" is why hermeneutics is deeply pedagogical.

Several studies have focused on the social sharing of visual practices as constitutive of evidence within a domain, while there has been relatively less attention paid to points where the social sharing of practices breaks down, or is resisted. This article argues that a study of both types of cases is necessary in order to gain a better perspective on social sharing of practices, and on what other factors this sharing is dependent upon. The article presents the case of currently emerging inter-disciplinary visual practices in the domain of computational biology, where the sharing of visual practices would be beneficial to the collaborations necessary for the research. Computational biology includes sub-domains where visual practices are coming to be shared across disciplines, and those where this is not occurring, and where the practices of others are resisted. A significant point of difference between these sub-domains is between visualizations that render the output of simulations and those which are images taken during observations using the techniques of microscopy. A crossing over, compromise or sharing of practices relating to these different sub-domains is difficult and often resisted. This resistance needs to be contextualised in a far richer account of the relations between the visual artifacts, the scientists who use them within disciplinary domains, the theoretical and instrumentational outlook of the disciplines in question, and that towards which the science is directed, its domain of study. Social practices alone are not sufficient to account for the shaping of evidence. The philosophy of Merleau-Ponty is introduced as providing an alternative framework for thinking of the complex inter-relations between all of these factors. This philosophy enables us to think of the inter-constitutive relations between these different factors, which ultimately define an epistemological and ontological space in which the object of study itself has an active constitutive role, and in which the scientist as person and perceiving body within a knowledge domain is also constituted.

I possess a wide range of experience critiquing and editing academic literature including abstracts, articles, book chapters, proposals and thesis drafts. I have edited ESL work from international scholars and international PhD students from Brazil to Romania to Germany. I am currently Co-editing a Festschrift project from proposal to final manuscript, incorporating input from authors, consultants and reviewers. My editing services include copy editing, content editing, style editing and proof reading. Topics of expertise include, but are not limited to, Humanities Computing, Philosophy, History, Religion, Digital Humanities, Information Ethics, Philosophy of Information, Digital Citizenship, Global Citizenship, and Intercultural Information Ethics. Services available at www.jaredbielby.com