Hermeneutics of Technology

This is a call for papers for the special isuue "Hermeneutics of Technology".

Hermeneutics of Technology  (guest editors: WU Guolin and LUO Dong)

Deadline: December 5, 2023

For a long time, hermeneutics was confined to the humanities and arts, to legal and religious studies, and to the exegesis primarily of texts. In recent years, however, the hermeneutics of science and technology came into its own, along with questions of „scientific understanding“ or „hermeneutic Technology Assessment“ and along with the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence or quantum technology which appear to elude human comprehension. Sense-making becomes especially important in a so-called culture of prediction, robustness, and reliability – and hermeneutics provides suitable methods for sense-making as well as observing and appreciating the various ways of making sense. 

This expansion of the reach of the hermeneutic approach does not imply, however, that it now includes all forms of discourse analysis, textual understanding, or interpretation. What it does imply is that also in regard to science and technology one might  consider a transformative act of „reading“ within a horizon of meaning. For instance, the consideration of an experiment or a historically significant device can remind us of their proximity to philosophically significant art-works. 

There will be the possibility to present some draft-papers at a Chinese-German workshop on Hermeneutics of Science and Technology on June 2 and 3, 2023.