Hermeneutics of Science: New Metapolitics of Institutional Order

This article examines the validity of the hermeneutic method in the analysis of science and technology. The scientific method is considered to be objective, rational and extra-contextual, which conceptually corresponds to the ideals of science since the Enlightenment. At the same time, the hermeneutic method, which presupposes dialogue, plurality of interpretation and deep embeddedness in the cultural context, has been considered exclusively in the methodological context of the humanities. The transformation of discussions in the philosophy of science, marked by the transition to the Kuhnian language of the self-description of science, led to a further deepening of research into questions of its institutional nature. Critical studies by Alfred Nordmann, Don Idhe, Robert Crease and Andrew Feenberg show from different angles show different facets of using hermeneutic within and beyond academia. Hierarchies, especially those that regulate institutional scientific life, use the mechanisms of metapolitical control. Notions of the institutional order of science are a result of the hermeneutic method applied to it in an obscure way. The outcomes are sociotechnical imageries, habits of thought, certain models of technological design and the public image of science as a neutral and operationally autonomous institution. The study demonstrates that this is caused by the use of the hermeneutic method as an instrument of metapolitics. Its legitimation within the framework of scientific practices, embodied in the projects of sociology of science, feminist philosophy of science and critical theory of technorationality has borne its first fruits. It is also leading to a drastic shift in the application of control mechanisms. The change in attitude towards cultural embeddedness, contextuality and the possibility of hermeneutic analysis of scientific objects and processes fundamentally restructures the scientific ethos.