Hermeneutic Methods in Science

Hermeneutic methods have ordinarily been used in humanities and social studies where theories and descriptions do not explain observable facts, but interpret actions, texts and cultures. However, there is a progressing tendency to synthesize methodological insights and research programs in practices of technoscience as presupposed by actor-network theory or program of integration for qualitative and quantitative methodology in sociological investigations. Alfred Nordmann is convinced that objective scientific knowledge cannot be a subject of exegesis and subject-related interpretations, because knowledge in science depends on conventional language and models as sense-making devices. Therefore, hermeneutics of science is a less coherent project than hermeneutics of technologies. This opinion is interesting to compare to pluralism of scientific descriptions, when alternative conceptual frameworks can be equally valid and justified. The aim of article, thus, is to explain hermeneutic practices in scientific communication and cognition by exposing theoretical and historical arguments which warrant the application of hermeneutic methods in research of nature. It states that, according to perspectivism in cognitive sciences, considering theories as construals, constructivist component in theories of mental modeling and interpretative semiotics, scientific models are necessarily subject-related. In addition, we can find historical evidences that hermeneutics of science is connected with Christian intellectual tradition, natural philosophy and modern technoscience.