On the Hermeneutic Fore-structure of Scientific Research

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143HERMENEUTICFORE-STRUCTURE

Continental Philosophy Review 32: 143168, 1999. 1999Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

On the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research

DIMITRI GINEVCenter for Culturology, Department of Philosophy, University of Sophia,

Ruski 15 Str., Sophia 1000, Bulgaria

Abstract.The paper provides an overview of the hermeneutic and phenomenologicalcontext from which the idea of a constitutional analysis of science originated. It

analyzes why the approach to hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research re-

quires to transcend the distinction between the context of justification and the con-text of discovery. By incorporating this approach into an integral postmetaphysical

philosophy of science, I argue that one can avoid the radical empiricism of recent

science studies, while also preventing the analysis of sciences discursive practices

from collapsing into the frames of radical anti-epistemological critique mandated by

some hermeneutic philosophers.

In what follows, I want to suggest a hermeneutico-phenomenological con-

ception of natural-scientific research with the aim of showing how a philo-

sophical interpretation of rationality of science beyond epistemological

foundationalism is possible. I should make clear at the start that I will not

be dealing with a large class of (rather technical) questions concerningthe relationships between philosophical hermeneutics and (what one might

call) post-foundational epistemology. My concern in this paper is only

with delineating a context of studying natural-scientific research, in which

a specific hermeneutic fore-structure of doing such a research can be

revealed. Following the phenomenological concept of constitutional

analysis, I will call this a context of constitution, opposing it to the

context of justification and the context of discovery.

1. On the very idea of the hermeneutic fore-structure of

scientific research

An important consequence of reformulating the transcendental phenom-

enology of consciousness intentionality in a hermeneutic phenomenology

of facticity is the rise of a new paradigm of constitutional analysis.


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144 DIMITRIGINEV

Transcendental ego no longer plays the role of a privileged site of mean-ing constitution. It is rather the totality where this constitution takes place.

On the new paradigm of constitutional analysis, there is a kind of interpre-

tation which is an intrinsic moment of all human activities. This kind should

not be confused with the concept of interpretation as a specific epistemic

procedure. From the perspective of hermeneutic phenomenology, inter-

pretation must be comprehended in the sense of a primordial existential

act. The primordial interpretation brings to light the meanings consti-

tuted contextually within a particular activity. There is no meaningful Be-

ing-in-the world without interpretation. In the course of clarifying in what

sense the projecting of understanding has its own possibility, Heidegger

(1962, pp. 188189) writes: In interpretation, understanding does not

become something different . It becomes itself. Such interpretation is

grounded existentially in understanding; the latter does not arise from the

former. Nor is interpretation the acquiring of information about what is

understood; it is rather the working-out of possibilities projected in under-

standing.

In rejecting the idea of an ultimate transcendental grounding provided

by egos time-consciousness, one focuses on the temporal-interpretative

self-constitution of human activities. In this perspective, the existential

structure of the primordial interpretation (i.e., the structure revealed

throughDaseinsanalyt ik) involves three moments which Heidegger calls

fore-having (Vorhabe), fore-sight (Vorsicht), and fore-conception (Vorgriff).

Fore-having is the background of familiar practices in which an averageunderstanding of the situations of everyday concernful dealing is em-

bedded; fore-sight provides the orientation of the everyday involvement

in concernful practices; and fore-conception is the anticipatory grasp of

what is supposed to be an outcome of the concernful practices. Thus

considered, the existential structure of interpretation is a hermeneutic

fore-structure of the modes of being-in-the-world. Accordingly, each

human activity is predicated on a characteristic hermeneutic fore-struc-

ture. Heideggers elaborations on the nexus understanding-interpretation

provoke an interesting ambiguity in the way of construing the notion of

hermeneutic fore-structure. On the one hand, this notion denotes

everydayness as a mode of being-in-the-world that has a pre-epistemo-logical status. Speaking in terms ofSein und Zeit,everydayness is the

primordial mode of existence characterized by the concernful upon-which

of a projection in terms of which something becomes intelligible as some-

thing that is ready-to-hand. This pre-epistemological constitution of mean-

ing (as the upon-which of a projection) gets its structure from a fore-having,


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a fore-sight, and a fore-conception. On this reading, everydayness is op-posed to all epistemologically specified modes of existence (repre-

sented typically by the different kinds of scientific research). By this

expression I mean a mode of being-in-the-world characterized by epistemic

procedures of thematizing the world. In transforming the readiness-to-hand

into a thematically objectified presence-at-hand, every epistemologically

specified mode of existence remains based upon the concernful constitu-

tion of meaning. The theoretical attitude of thematization modifies but

does not eliminate everydayness hermeneutic fore-structure of meaning

constitution. The latter becomes concealed in the cognitive structure of

the former. In this regard, each epistemological specification of existence

as characterized by a theoretical attitude of thematization presupposes a

modification of everydayness. Thus, the hermeneutic fore-structure can

be construed in te rms of the contradist inction between primordial

being-in-the-world and epistemologically distinguished modes of existence.

In this perspective, it is a notion of a hermeneutico-phenomenological theory

of everydayness.

On the other hand, there is no being-in-the-world led by epistemologi-

cal principles and methodological norms of a given theoretical attitude

that is free from discursive-practical everydayness. A regime of every-

day concernful dealing with the intramundane things (illustrated typi-

cally by a scientific communitys everyday life) is to be attributed to each

secondary (epistemologically specified) mode of existence. By impli-

cation, the search for a hermeneutic fore-structure of a totality of(epistemologically distinguished) discursive practices is completely rea-

sonable enterprise. This is why many important distinctions of

Daseinsanalytik are to be applied not only to stressing the existential

primordiali ty of non-thematizing behavior, but to the intrinsic organi-

zation of the modes of being-in-the-world-through-thematizing-

the-world-theoretically as well. In particular, the distinction between the

pre-predicative as-structure of seeing of the ready-to-hand and the

thematic-predicative as-structure of seeing of the present-at-hand is ap-

plicable to the epistemologically specified modes of existence. Heidegger

does not pay much attention to the intrinsic everydayness of these modes.

The main theme of his early philosophy is the hermeneutic fore-structureof everydayness as average existence (durchschnittliche Existenz),since

only the analysis of this fore-structure provides an access to Being. (To

be sure, an extension of hermeneutic phenomenology to secondary modes

of existence would not be acceptable for the author ofBeing and Time,

because it threatens to dissolve fundamental ontology in a plurality of


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146 DIMITRIGINEV

existential analytics of the specified modes of being-in-the-world. Conse-quently, this extension would transform hermeneutic phenomenology into

a kind of interpretative anthropology of the diversity of cultural forms

corresponding to the secondary modes of existence).

From a hermeneutico-phenomenological point of view, scientific re-

search is to be studied with respect to both meanings that a Heideggerian

approach would ascribe to the notion of hermeneutic fore-structure. Sci-

entif ic research is an epistemologically specif ied mode of

being-in-the-world, and therefore, it has an existential genesis from the

ontologically primordial everydayness. (This is the guiding idea of

Heideggers existential conception of science inBeing and Time).Yet

scientific research is characterized by its own everydayness, called by

Kuhn a normal science. Related to this everydayness, hermeneutic

fore-structure is the notion of horizon of scientific research (carried out

by the collective Dasein of a scientific community) as this notion is

understood within the paradigm of constitutional analysis suggested by

hermeneutic phenomenology. My efforts in this paper are concentrated

entirely on the hermeneutic fore-structure of the normal-scientific

everydayness (which I will call research everydayness).

The hermeneutic fore-structure is always projected onto the wholeness

of practices involved in a certain kind of human activity. In particular,

there is always a hermeneutic fore-structure projected onto totality of

discursive practices that build up the normal sciences kind of research of

a given scientific community within a given scientific domain. This claimraises the question of how to distinguish between hermeneutic

fore-structure and cognitive structure of scientific research. In trying to

address this question, let me take as an example a particular situation of a

hypothetical research process in chemistry. Suppose that the process is

carried out by a community engaged in studying chemical reaction net-

works. In their research work, the communitys members employ a wide

range of discursive practices: (i) preparing reports of various kinds of

chemical reactions (e.g., transient chemical oscillations in closed sys-

tems, dissociation reactions, reactions at metal surfaces, enzyme-catalyzed

reactions, etc.); (ii) elaborating on experimental designs that can bring to

light new data (e.g., creating laser-illuminated systems, continuously stirredflow tank reactors, heterogeneous electrochemical systems, and so on);

(iii) establishing specific patterns of dynamical behavior of reacting sys-

tems (in particular, patterns of nonlinear behavior like bistability, com-

plex oscillations, nonequilibrium steady states, birhythmicity, bifurcations

of limit cycles, and chaos); (iv) searching for formal techniques for a


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graphical description of dynamical behavior (like dynamical phase dia-grams and crossshaped diagrams); (v) adjusting the new experimental

data to theoretical models of the background knowledge; (vi) looking for

new mathematical formalisms for reacting systems far from equilibrium;

(vii) repeating experiments with the intention of checking whether the

experimental data confirm the existence of a specific pattern of dynami-

cal behavior; (viii) checking up the formal consistency of the theoretical

models.

The interrelatedness of all these discursive practices informs the integ-

rity of the scientific communitys research everydayness. There are com-

mon meanings, implicit norms, ways of intersubjective experiencing,

anticipations, inclinations, and orientations which are inextricable from

the self-constituting totality of discursive practices. Looking at this

everydayness, one can recognize within the interwovenness of practices a

fore-having, a fore-sight, and a fore-conception of doing research. Yet

one is unable to isolate these three moments as a static structure per se.

They are recognizable only in the processuality of scientific research.

Furthermore, they can only be thematized by reflecting upon the inter-

play between the totality of discursive practices and the structure of a

scientific domain (following the example, this would be the nonlinear

dynamics of chemical reactions far from equilibrium) constituted gradu-

ally by accomplishing the practices. (Later I shall try to demonstrate that

there are several ways of thematizing and analyzing this interplay as a

repetitive hermeneutic cycling. At this stage, I should like to point outthat the totality of discursive practices is to be conceived as a text-analogue.

Then, the hermeneutic cycling can be put in terms of part-whole rela-

tions: one is trying to establish a reading of the totality of discursive

practices, and for this one appeals to readings of part icular practices,

which on their part presume a reading of the totality). What is constituted

in the totality of discursive practices becomes (cognitively and socially)

institutionalized knowledge of a scientific domain. In the cognitive struc-

ture of such a domain, one finds theoretical models of empirical data

(e.g., models of nonlinear chemical reaction networks as dissipative struc-

tures), explanatory scenarios (e.g., explaining the strange behavior of

chemical reactions in terms of nonequilibrium, thermodynamics), meth-odological codes of how to expand the domain through conceptualizing

new empirical data (e.g., data from biochemistry and geochemistry) and

constructing new theoretical models, and how to avoid ad hoc hypotheses

(i.e., hypotheses that restrict the domains empirical content in order to

save the validity of certain theoretical models). These components of the


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148 DIMITRIGINEV

cognitive structure (and the very structure as a whole) are complete andclosed from epistemological and semantic points of view. (In other words,

for each component one can formulate epistemological and semantic cri-

teria for completeness. Thus, for instance, a complete theory is that one

which can no longer be improved by minor alterations; a complete meth-

odological code is that one which excludes the possibility of being en-

riched with new normative principles, and so on).

Of course, the cognitive structure of each scientific domain is liable to

further modifications and revisions. The point, however, is that at any

stage of the domains development one can get a reconstruction (in epis-

temological and semantic terms) of its structure as a complete and closed

structure. By contrast, the processual totality of discursive practices, in

which components of the cognitive structure come into being, remains

always open for further readings. Clearly, the structure of knowledge in

a conceptually, mathematically, theoretically and methodologically ar-

ticulated scientific domain supervenes on the horizon informed by a sci-

entific communitys fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception. However,

one must not confuse the processuality of constituting the structure of

scientific knowledge with the very structure. This distinction precisely

defines the demarcational line between the hermeneutic fore-structure and

the cognitive structure of scientific research.

To sum up, with respect to the established cognitive structure of a

scientific domain, the interwovenness of discursive practices bears the

character of a hermeneutic fore-structure. Fore here stands not for thepresupposit ional character of al l cognit ion ( in the sense of

pre-understanding that accompanies each cognitive procedure; an aspect

that is of prime importance for M. Polanyis ideas). Fore refers rather

to the pre-cognitive, ontological conditions of having a cognitive struc-

ture of experience within a given mode of existence. The hermeneutic

fore-structure does not chronologically precede the cognitive structure.1

(The thesis that research everydayness interwovenness of discursive prac-

tices is a hermeneutic fore-structure pulls the further analysis in opposite

directions. The first direction is towards the actual totality of practices

that gradually constitute a scientific domain. The second direction is to-

wards the negativity of this totality, i.e. the practices that become gradu-ally pushed out, sedimented, and forgotten in the research

everydayness processuality. Since these forgotten practices have a nega-

tive presence in the research process and can be (under circumstances)

reactivated, they build up scientific communitys unconscious. In this

regard, one may draw the conclusion that the research everydayness both


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reveals [as actual totality] and conceals [as negative presence] thehermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research. The programs of study-

ing the discursive-practical constitution of scientific knowledge guided

by the tenets of radical empiricism [like those of the cognitive sociology

of science] pay attention exclusively on the research everydayness as ac-

tual totality. As a consequence, they miss important aspects of the for-

mation of scientific domains. Later I shall return to this critique of the

cognitive sociology).

Hermeneutic fore-structure does not also mean a hidden essence be-

hind the cognitive structure. This fore-structure is rather the

discursive-practical processuality of structuring the cognitive structure.

To put it in other words, fore-structure is not before, but it is the very

dynamics of the cognitive structure. While the cognitive structure is to be

rationally reconstructed, the enquiry of the totality of discursive practices

as a hermeneutic fore-structure demands a completely other type of re-

flection. The latter is to be provided by the constitutional analysis of

hermeneutic phenomenology.

Before going on to see how the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific

research can be thematized and analyzed, I think it would be useful to set

out more clearly what is the significance of this study for the attempts of

universalizing hermeneutics as alternative to the epistemological project

of modern philosophy.

A genuine universalizing of hermeneutics would require a commitment

to the view that there is no human activity which is not primordiallypredicated on a dialogical constitution of meaning. In other words, one

has to demonstrate that there is no human activity which is not

hermeneutically fore-structured. This claim contradicts the central tenets

of the analytical philosophy of science. Both realists and antirealists make

the case that scientific research is an activity predicated basically on a

monological representation of the mind and external reality. In opposing

naturalism, epistemological representationalism and foundationalism, the

studies into the hermeneutic fore-structure of natural-scientific research

are contributing to the genuine universalizing of hermeneutics. To be sure,

the objects of natural-scientific research (like electromagnetic fields, ge-

netic drifts, or enzyme-catalyzed reactions) cannot be regarded as part-ners in a dialogue, and can only be thematized by following the

methodological standards, norms, and criteria of an objectivist-

monological epistemology. Nevertheless, an important dialogical di-

mension of natural-scientific research is stressed by several authors

(Bevilacqua and Giannetto 1995, Crease 1995, Eger 1995, Ginev 1997a,


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150 DIMITRIGINEV

Heelan 1997b), who pay more attention to the instrumental context of thisresearch. In this perspective, the instruments of the laboratory milieu are

sui generis interpreters between researcher and nature. It is nature

that inscribes a meaningful text on the instruments which the researcher

has to read in a dialogical process. As I already pointed out, the whole

research everydayness in natural sciences is informed by dialogical pat-

terns of reading a meaningful text. Thus, like any other human activity,

natural-scientific research can be interpreted as a completion-of-meaning

process of reading. (Gadamer 1997, p. 51). In stressing this dimension

of natural-scientific research, one succeeds in overcoming the image of

science based upon epistemological foundationalism. Yet the

hermeneutico-dialogical approach to natural-scientific research helps also

in surmounting the neopragmatic deconstruction of sciences cognitive

specificity. On this approach, it is precisely scientific researchs

hermeneutic fore-structure that makes science a distinctive mode of

being-in-the-world. To draw the implications of this thesis amounts to

developing an alternative to the neopragmatic rejection of a significant

science/nonscience cut within the whole of culture.

In the perspective of the hermeneutic study of natural-scientific re-

search, science gains its autonomous cognitive organization not because

of having a normative code of epistemological rationality or because

there are transcendental conditions of constructing specifically designed

knowledge. The reason why science has a cognitive differentia specifica

is to be found by scrutinizing the specificity of scientific researchshermeneutic fore-structure.

2. Ways of analyzing the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific

research

Let me start with some technical remarks. In the preceding section, I

admitted tacitly that the structural unit of scientific research used for

making a distinction between hermeneutic fore-structure and cognitive

structure is the scientific domain. A scientific domain is a body of related

information about which there is a problem, raised on the basis of spe-cific considerations. On another definition (Shapere 1984), domain is each

body of information constituted by items for which an answer to an im-

portant problem is expected. Examples of domains in earlier stages of

science are Mendeleevs periodic table of chemical elements, Mendels

genetics, Lavoisiers chemistry, Darwins theory of evolution, and classi-


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cal mechanics. Examples of domains in contemporary stages are specialrelativity, quantum mechanics, synthetic theory of evolution, molecular

biology, and biochemistry. In view of the task of deepening the analysis

of the nexus hermeneutic fore-structure cognitive structure, I am go-

ing to specify the notion of scientific domain in a manner that combines

constructivist aspects (related to the way scientific research becomes

objectified as a body of knowledge) and structuralist aspects (related to

the semantic contents of this knowledge). While the constructivist as-

pects are to be elucidated from the viewpoint of a hermeneutics of scien-

tific research, relevant to the structuralist aspects is the so called semantic

conception of scientific theory.2 A central notion of this conception is

that of theoretical model a model of the dynamical behavior of a

certain class of empirical systems. From a semantic point of view, a theo-

retical model represents the dynamical behavior as a set of states and a

sequence defined over that set. Each state is a simultaneous configuration

of values of behaviors basic parameters. For instance, a state of a system

studied in classical mechanics is a configuration of the instantaneous po-

sitions, masses, and velocities of the bodies included in the system. (Only

a small number of scientific domains are constituted by theoretical mod-

els that are not dealing with systems dynamical behavior but with

taxonomical, morphological, or structural aspects of empirical systems. As

a rule, however, these domains are closely related to domains in which

systems dynamical behavior is investigated). The theoretical models are

intended applications of domains theory. In avoiding all technical details,one is to state that the totality of possible models of domains theory (or,

the whole models-interpretation of domains theory) provides the semantic

scope of scientific domain.

The formal-semantic treatment of scientific domains cognitive struc-

ture does not contradict the search for a fore-structuring of scientific re-

search. By contrast, this treatment reveals a wide range of issues that

demand a reflection upon the hermeneutic fore-structure. The following

description of the three main ways of analyzing this fore-structure repre-

sents a selection of issues. It is not my aim in this paper to dwell on the

complementarity between the semantic reconstruction of domains cogni-

tive structure and the hermeneutics of scientific research. The selectionof issues I will offer should provide a rationale for delineating the con-

text of constitution.

(a) The first way to get to grips with the hermeneutic fore-structure is by

studying the interplay between the stream of discursive practices (charac-


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terizing the research everydayness of a scientific community) and thegradual constitution of theoretical models that build a scientific domain.

A historical priority in studying this aspect of scientific researchs

fore-structuring is to be attributed to the school of methodical

constructivism.3 Members of this school proposed different scenarios of

illuminating how the conceptually articulated scientific domains are de-

veloped from the everyday practices of scientific research by a process of

Hochstilisierung(based upon applying procedures of idealization and for-

malization). However, instead of looking for a hermeneutic cycling be-

tween the discursive practices and the arising (from these practices)

theoretical structures, the constructivists, suggested the so-called princi-

ple of methodical order. On this principle, the complexity of discursive

practices taking place in scientific research must be algorithmically re-

constructed as a step-by-step order that leads from the elementary prac-

tices of the prescientific experience to the axioms and postulates of the

scientific theories. Following this principle, the constructivists admit a

strong unidirectionality of scientific research from pure prescientific

instrumentation, through dealing with scientific instruments in which

geometrical forms are technically realized, to pure theorizing. What

methodical constructivists forget to take into consideration is the fact that

all elementary practices (of doing measurements, using instruments of

experimenting, reading experimental data, and so on) are embedded into

a horizon of a certain research everydayness (or, a life-world of a

scientific community), and this horizon is not to be separated from thecognitive structure of scientific domain. Hence, instead of step-by-step

methodical order one has to search for a characteristic hermeneutic circle

between practical instrumentation and models constructing theorizing.4

In this regard, the focus should be placed on particular forms of fu-

sion of discursive practices that contribute to articulating a domain through

promoting the creation of new theoretical models. (In order to illustrate

this claim, let me return to my previous example. Suppose that for a long

time members of the scientific community have studied experimentally

chemical reaction systems that exhibit nonequilibrium steady states. Par-

allel to this research work, other members of this community have been

preoccupied with finding equations that describe the time evolution ofchemical systems far from equilibrium. Because of high diversity of the

empirical data, on the one hand, and technical complexity of the equa-

tions, on the other, the discursive practices of the two groups have re-

mained separated. Now, the situation changes, since a third group comes

on the scene. The new group proves to be engaged in a discursive prac-


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tice that may bridge the gap between experimental data and mathematicalspeculations. More specifically, this discursive practice consists in a se-

ries of attempts to adjust mathematical descriptions of phenomena far

from equilibrium and stochastic analyses of nonequilibrium systems to

the background knowledge, which in this case is the thermodynamic of

equilibrium fluctuations and its statistic methods. In the final reckoning,

there is a fusion of the three discursive practices that leads to creation

of theoretical models of the chemical systems with multiple steady states.

These are the fluctuation-dissipation models, in which the thermodynamic

entropy is generalized to a new function, restricted to the vicinity of

nonequilibrium of steady states). I should like to call such fusions of

discursive practices crucial situations of the research process. To stress

again, a crucial situation is the site where a creation of new theoretical

models of empirical systems dynamical behavior takes place.

An important aspect of the crucial situation is the conspicuous in-

crease of scientific communitys self-reflectivity. I would not say that

this increase implies necessary a calling into question communitys nor-

mal science type of research. In most crucial situations, the predomi-

nance of self-reflective behavior has nothing to do with a revolutionary

be ha vior. Self- re fl ec tiv ity is ra the r a wa y of br in ging in to ligh t

preunderstandings (or, forgotten understandings) regarding the specific

nature of what is under study. Such a self-reflectivity demands an actu-

alization of the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research. In this

actualization, preunderstandings become integrated into the process ofconstructing theoretical models. Following this line of reasoning, one

might also say that the fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception of a

research everydayness remain preserved in the theoretical models as inte-

grated hermeneutic preunderstandings. Generally speaking, the more com-

plex is an empirical systems dynamical behavior, the more hermeneutic

preunderstandings are involved in the theoretical model. The function of

these preunderstandings is to open the door for applying non-reductionistic

devices in scientific research, when the reductionist standards of episte-

mological objectivism have only a restricted application (because of the

complexity of systems dynamical behavior). Examples of such devices

are: the principle of complementarity (when the systems complexity doesnot allow a joint specification of each pair of canonical coordinates, or a

specification of commutation relations for such coordinates); the quasi-

ergodic theorem stipulating that the trajectory of a systems dynamics

may pass arbitrarily close to every point on the energy surface (when the

systems complexity demands a probabilist approach); different kinds of


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coupled, nonlinear differential equations and methods of differential to-pology (when the system exhibits complexity typical of dynamical be-

havior far from equilibrium). Actualizing scientific researchs fore-having,

fore-sight and fore-conception through integrating preunderstandings in

theoretical models is a particular illustration of the interplay between

hermeneutic fore-structure and cognitive structure.

A crucial situation is to be treated as a structural unit of the research

process carried out by a certain scientific community. In such a situation

(because of the fusion of discursive practices) the inseparability of a

theory-laden meaning and a praxis-laden meaning comes to the fore.5

Roughly speaking, theory-laden meaning is informed by procedures like

idealization and mathematization, whilst praxis-laden meaning comes from

procedures like experimental instrumentation and measurement. Yet these

two groups of discursive practices are mutually reinforcing in the process

of constituting theoretical models. This is why these models are an amal-

gam of praxis-laden and theory-laden semantic components, where the

former correspond to the integrated hermeneutic preunderstandings, and

the latter to the objective knowledge. A special aspect of this

problematics provides the reflection upon the role of technology and en-

gineering in scientific research. However, since the discussion of this

aspect requires entering into the complexity of science-technology re-

lations, I will leave it aside.

(b) The second way of reflecting upon the hermeneutic fore-structure ofscientific research leads us to focusing on the normativity that is to be

attributed to the process of constituting domains of scientific research. I

will call it proto-normativity, referring to all normative aspects of com-

munitys research everydayness that cannot be reduced to (and formu-

lated as) a codex of scientific honesty (in the sense of Lakatos). In

using this hyphenated expression, I mean not simply the normativity (em-

bedded in communitys totality of discursive practices) that precedes the

articulation of methodological norms, standards, and criteria. Proto-

normativity does not denote inexact and vague formulations of these norms,

standards, and criteria that later on (by means of logical analysis and

rational reconstruction of scientific language) will be transformed into

particular prescriptions. I have in mind prescriptions that can be cast in

terms of categorical imperatives (the case of traditional normative episte-

mology) or hypothetical imperatives (the case of Laudans normative

naturalism). Furthermore, proto-normativity does not only mean a pre-

articulated form of the explicit norms of rational scientific behavior.


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The essential difference between proto-normativity and methodologicalnormativity is to be derived from the difference between constitution and

reconstruction. Proto-normativity follows from the part-whole interplay

as informed by the hermeneutic circle. By taking place in the totality of

communitys research everydayness, this interplay constitutes gradually

a specific domain of scientific research. Thus considered, proto-normativity

is an ontological characteristic of scientific communitys being-in-the-

world. It is inherent in communitys fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-

conception. By contrast, methodological normativity is to be restricted to

the epistemological reconstruction of research process cognitive struc-

ture and dynamics.

Reflecting upon proto-normativity makes the constitutional analysis

(in the paradigm of hermeneutic phenomenology) irreducible to both em-

pirical thematizing and normative reconstructing. In other words, because

the hermeneutico-circular being-the-world is predicated on proto-

normativity, its rationalizing cannot be carried out by empirical

thematization or normative reconstruction. In contradistinction to the

methodological norms (which are presumably invariant and de-

contextualized), proto-normativity is not to be isolated from the particu-

lar situations of the research everydayness, in which the fusion of

discursive practices takes place.

Proto-normativity refers to the implicit requirements that the pro-

jected hermeneutic fore-structure imposes upon scientific research.

Fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception determine the way the dis-cursive practices (involved in scientific research) should be arranged

and accomplished. In other words, there is an unarticulated web of pre-

scriptions for making use of background experience; inclinations, pref-

erences, and orientations attached to each discursive practice; and

anticipations of what is coming when a discursive practice is accom-

plished. This web is incorporated in the totality of scientific research a

manner that prevents any specification of particular norms or norma-

tive codes of scientific rationality.6

On another definition, proto-normativity is a notion denoting the hid-

den normative arrangement of a scientific communitys research

everydayness. In the course of the research process, an ongoing articula-tion of the proto-normative web in explicit epistemological and methodo-

logical norms, standards, and criteria takes place. The very articulation

takes the form of a spiraling alternation between the projected whole of

fore-having, fore-sight, and fore-conception on the research everydayness

and the specified norms of the particular discursive practices.7 Thus, the


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156 DIMITRIGINEV

more advanced is the research process the more proto-normativity of thehermeneutic fore-structure turns into explicit methodology and regulative

epistemology of this process.

A special issue in discussing proto-normativity of scientific research is

the issue of the knowledge-guiding interests. Vis-a-vis the fact that the

proto-normative hermeneutic fore-structure provides scientific research

with a primordial orientation, which is the source of all secondary

cognitive interests and orientations, there is no reason to hold that the

basic knowledge-guiding interests are not intrinsic to scientific research.

From the viewpoint of philosophical hermeneutics, there are no knowledge-

guiding interests that are not constituted within the hermeneutic

fore-structure of scientific research. This view opposes Apels (1968, 1977)

conception of the interests, guiding the generation of knowledge in natu-

ral, social, and (what he, after Habermas, calls) critical-emancipatory sci-

ences. On this conception, the three basic interests (the interest in

controlling an objectified world; the interest in communicative under-

standing; and the interest in critically emancipatory self-reflection) are to

be considered as normative conditions of the possibility of constituting

objects of specified scientific experience.8 Apel also rejects the view that

the knowledge-guiding interests may be equated with the external histori-

cal interests which promote and institute different types of scientific re-

search. In so doing, however, he goes on to insist that the knowledge-guiding

interests are a topic of a transcendental reflection which has to disclose

(in Apels idiom) the apriori-structures of the validity claims raised in theargumentative discourses of natural, social, and critical-emancipatory sci-

ences. By claiming that the interests guiding the three types of

scientific-argumentative discourse must be (transcendentally) presupposed

in the systematic account of the possibility of the constitution of natural-,

social-, and critical-scientific objects of study, Apel actually hypostatizes

the basic norms of validity associated with these interests. In so doing, he

refuses to reflect upon their hermeneutico-practical genesis. An illus-

tration in this respect is provided by the following programmatic declara-

tion: Concerning the three fundamental interests of knowledge I would

claim that they can be systematically grounded as normative conditions

of the possibility of meaningful experience within the frame of a tran-scendental pragmatics of language games. And this implies the further

claim that all conceivable internal, meaning-constitutive interests of knowl-

edge may be derived, in a sense, from the three fundamental knowledge

interests or from possible typical combinations or dialectical mediations

of them. (Apel 1977, p. 431).


15/26


In suggesting these elaborations, Apel is led by the conviction that theconditions of the possibility of argumentative discourse (or, the condi-

tions of intersubjective validity) are on a deeper (foundational) level

than the hermeneutic fore-structure of producing such a discourse. Con-

sequently, the hermeneutics of discursivephronesis has to be replaced by

a transcendental hermeneutics of the argumentative discourse. Yet this

claim simply expresses an old-fashioned transcendental illusion. There

are no meta-scientific (or transcendental) conditions of the validity-claims

of scientific argumentation that lie behind (the situativeness and

contextuality of) the discursive practices of scientific research.8

(c) The third way is to be described as an effective-historical interpre-

tation of the dynamics of scientific research. In each new moment of the

research process (or, after each new crucial situation) the hermeneutic

fore-structure becomes more and more effaced by scientific domains

cognitive structure. It seems reasonable then to assume that there will

come a final moment, at which the research process will reach an ulti-

mate (finished) cognitive structure. It seems reasonable then to assume

that there will come a final moment, at which the research process will

reach an ultimate (finished) cognitive structure, and consequently, the

hermeneutic fore-structure will be totally objectified. Yet this abstract

possibility can never become an actuality. The research process always

remains predicated on an interpretative openness, and its hermeneutic

fore-structure is in each moment a fore-structure of completion (inGadamers sense). Indeed, one can introduce cogent epistemological (and

semantic) criteria for a completeness of models, theories, fields, domains,

etc. The point, however, is that this completeness (however it might be

formulated) is relative to the never-ending interpretative openness of sci-

entific research. In other words, there is a dialectic between closure and

openness in the processuality of constituting scientific domain. On this

dialectic, the hermeneutic openness in scientific researchs historical dy-

namics is absolute, while the epistemological/semantic closedness is al-

ways contextual and relative. The interpretative openness characterizes

not only the research process but scientific domains cognitive structure

as well. There is always a possibility to absorb and dissolve such an

established structure in an ongoing process of discursive practices of an

arising domain. (The development of modern physics provides many ex-

amples of absorption of supposedly theoretically finished scientific

domains that become later recast in the discursive practices of new-arising

domains). In the historical dynamics of scientific development the ef-


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158 DIMITRIGINEV

facement of domains hermeneutic fore-structures and the absorptionof finished cognitive structure go hand in hand, thereby providing an

illustration of the interplay between hermeneutic fore-structure and cog-

nitive structure.

The priority of the interpretative openness of scientific research over

the epistemic (and semantic) closedness of scientific knowledges struc-

ture is a specification of the priority of the practical rationality of pru-

dence (phronesis) over the epistemologically justified rationality.

Against the background of the foregoing considerations concerning the

interpretative openness one can figure out how Gadamers conception of

effective history is to be applied to natural-scientific research. Notori-

ously, Gadamer is not interested in the hermeneutic dimensions of scien-

tific experiences cognitive dynamics. His conception of the effective

history refers to the immanent history of the self-interpreting cultural

traditions. Gadamers attack on Diltheys methodologism stresses the in-

separability of human-scientific experiences cognitive dynamics from

the cultural traditions effective history in which this experience is em-

bedded. All objects of human-scientific research are formed exclusively

by cultural traditions. There is no human-scientific research tradition dis-

entangled from a multiplicity of cultural traditions. Of course, this view

is not without qualification tenable for the natural-scientific experience.

Most of the natural-scientific research traditions are completely independent

of cultural traditions, which makes the demarcation between internal

and external history reasonable. Notwithstanding, because of the inter-pl ay be tween he rmeneu ti c fore -s truc ture and cognitive st ructure,

Gadamers conception of effective history seems most relevant to the

internal dynamics of natural-scientific research traditions. (An idea which,

I think, would be unacceptable to Gadamer).

In trying to apply the conception of the effective history to

natural-scientific research, one has to have recourse again to the notion of

crucial situation. Each crucial situation in the research process is a

specific configuration of discursive practices that makes possible the con-

stitution of a theoretical model. From a hermeneutic point of view, what

is formed as objective knowledge in a given crucial situation is not to

be separated from what is handed down by the stream of fusing discursivepractices.9 In this regard, the fusion of discursive practices and the

objectifying thematization of what is under study form an effective unity

which can only be analyzed as a hermeneutico-historical process. At each

particular moment, scientific research is situated, i.e. leading to a cer-

tain crucial situation in which the discursive practices are materialized


17/26


and finalized as a constituted theoretical model. Yet at each moment sci-entific research (and this makes it a hermeneutico-historical process) tran-

scends its situatedness by opening new possibilities for a fusion of discursive

practices. In other words, at each, moment scientific research (like any

other cultural activity) is predicated on a situated transcendence. If one

generalizes the idea of scientific research as a hermeneutico-historical

process with respect to the whole dynamics of changing crucial situa-

tions in the development of scientific domains, then one can gain a pic-

ture of what would be an effective history of natural science.10

Actually, the three ways of analyzing the hermeneutic fore-structure

address three different (but closely interrelated) hermeneutic cycles char-

acterizing the processuality of scientific research. All three cycles refer to

particular aspects of articulating the cognitive structure of scientific re-

search. First, there is a repetitive cycling between the hermeneutic

fore-structure and the particular crucial situations in which theoretical

models are, articulated. Second, the ongoing articulation of normative

methodology of scientific research is the outcome of a repetitive cycling

between the proto-normative hermeneutic fore-structure and the articula-

tion of particular normative structures. Third, there is a repetitive cycling

that takes the form of effective history (Wirkungsgeschichte) and in-

forms the cognitive dynamics of scientific research.

3. Beyond the traditional context-distinction

The three ways of analyzing the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific

research are closely interconnected. My aim in this section is to show that

the integral framework they provide defines a specific philosophical con-

text of reflecting upon science, which I should like to call the context of

constitution. The delineation of an independent context of studying sci-

entific research raises the important question about the validity of the

traditional distinction between the context of discovery and the con-

text of justification. The hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research

is not to be cast in terms of the context of discovery, since the hermeneutic

circles it involves are intrinsic to the cognitive dynamics of scientificresearch. Yet the fore-structure does not belong to the context of justifica-

tion either, because it is not located in the finished structure of scien-

tific knowledge that is the theme of all programs of rational reconstruction

in the philosophy of science. The interpretative openness of the

hermeneutic fore-structure shifts the focus from what is complete (in epis-


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160 DIMITRIGINEV

temological and semantic terms) to what is in status nascendi (or, whatremains to be completed).

For many years the traditional context-distinction is under attack from

different perspectives.11 It has been criticized for the impossibility of

drawing a clear-cut temporal differentiation between discovery and justi-

fication. In fact, discovery and justification are not only intimately inter-

twined, but their inseparability is an essential feature of scientific work.

Of course, there is no reason to conclude that the entire process of dis-

covering must be completed before the process of justification can be-

gin. (Sahnon 1970, p. 37). But nevertheless, the constant interplay between

discovery and justification prevents the drawing of a clear demarcational

line between studying scientific research (exclusively) in terms of a cer-

tain empirical discipline and judging the rationality of this research (exclu-

sively) in terms of normative epistemology. Neither discovery nor

justification can be extracted as pure processes. Furthermore, the dis-

ciplines that are supposed to constitute the two contexts are not so clearly

divided as the context-distinction admits. On the one hand, psychology,

sociology, and cultural history (the main disciplines that must constitute

the context of discovery) contain significant logical and normative as-

pects, and on the other, normative epistemology presupposes empirical

studies for delineating the context of justification. (Moreover, there is no

normative justification that can be detached from the justifying psycho-

logical and social attitudes. Empirical processes are always shaping the

normativity of justification). Finally, a necessary condition for defendingthe context-distinction is to claim the irreducibility of normative episte-

mology to empirical disciplines. But if this claim fails, as the champions of

naturalized epistemology assert, then there is no room for separating the

normative from the factual in scientific research.

An attempt at a naturalist overcoming of the context-distinction de-

serves closer attention. I am referring to the attempt at getting rid of this

distinction in the cognitive sociology of science. One should pay special

attention to this attempt, for in many respects there are significant paral-

lels between the studies in sociology of scientific knowledge and the stud-

ies in hermeneutic philosophy of science. Both enterprises aim at

interpreting the relationship between the local settings in which scientificknowledge is produced and the cognitive and social standardization

and institutionalization of this knowledge in units (like domains, specialties,

and disciplines) that are relatively stable (with regard to the established

cognitive structure) and socially reproducible. Despite the parallels, how-

ever, they suggest in an important respect antipodal pictures of scientific


19/26


research. Notoriously, a basic tenet of the strong programme in soci-ology of scientific knowledge places emphasis on the necessity to con-

sider both true and false scientific knowledge generation equally

amenable to explanation in terms of empirical sociology. According to

the representatives of this programme, there is no rationale for privileging

an epistemological context of rational reconstruction, since all be-

liefs are on a par with one another with respect to the causes of their

credibility. (Barnes and Bloor 1982, p. 23) Consequently, truth,

method and rationality are no longer trans-empirical entities. All of

them are social artifacts. Like any other component of scientific knowl-

edge, they are, produced in local settings of scientific research. The

representatives of the strong programme (especially David Bloor) are

inspired by Wittgensteins rejection of the traditional epistemological

notions in favor of the discursive practices (linguistic games) expressing

particular forms of life. Accordingly, scientific research is construed

as such a form of life. There is no cognitive specificity of science that is

immune to empirical interpretation and sociological explanation. Hence,

there is no need of delineation a normative-epistemological context of

jus tif ication. A basic goal of the cognitive sociology is to reduce (with-

out remainder) this context to the empirical study of collective proc-

esses of constructing scientific knowledge. At this point, however, it

becomes evident that the cognitive sociology fai ls to defeat the argu-

ment of vicious circularity: By claiming that the study of sciences cog-

nitive specificity must be relegated to science itself (in this case, empiricalsociology), the whole enterprise of sociology of scientific knowledge

bears upon the truth and rationality that are taken over from the cogni-

tive structure of science which is supposed to be the object of study.12

Two remarks are in place here.

First, in order to avoid such a circularity, one has to take a critical

distance from science itself. In other words, one needs such a distance in

order to thematize the cognitive specificity of science without falling into

vicious circularity. A possible way of gaining critical distance is by as-

suming that the truth, rationality, and methodological norms of objectiv-

ity have a transcendental status. Of course, from the very outset this way

is precluded by the cognitive sociologists of science. Each transcendentalassumption would tacitly justify the context of justification. In fact, the

sociologists of scientific knowledge reject!: not only the transcendental-

and/or normative-epistemological account of sciences cognitive specifi-

city, but the very demand of achieving a critical distance. As a result,

cognitive sociology does not suggest a theory of how the social networks


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162 DIMITRIGINEV

produce the conceptual theoretical and methodological content of sci-ence. Despite the huge number of excellent case studies illuminating dif-

ferent social aspects of scientific research, there is no single example that

shows how a cognitive sociologys theory works in explaining the gen-

eration of knowledges specific cognitive structure in particular social

networks.13 The reduction of normative epistemology and the context of

justification to empirical sociology does not succeed in bridging the Car-

tesian gulf. The traditional epistemological dualism remains preserved in

the cognitive sociology of science.

Now, in raising this claim I come to my secondremark. Naturalizing

the context of justification is not the only way to overcome the

context-distinction. There is an opportunity to take a critical distance

from science and to avoid falling into vicious circularity, without suc-

cumbing to transcendentalism and/or epistemological normativism. What

sociology of scientific knowledge fails to develop is a theory of the dis-

cursive practices through which sciences cognitive content comes into

being.14 This failure is intimately related to the lack of critical distance.

Cognitive sociology of science does not succeed in explaining the social

production of scientific knowledge, since by taking for granted the natu-

ralist position it hypostatizes cognitive entities whose generation it

has to thematize. Yet is this thematization possible at all? If it is accom-

plished in the framework of an empirical theory, then (as the case of

cognitive sociology indicates) the vicious circularity is unavoidable. But

it is impossible in the framework of normative epistemology as well,since the latter has only to do with the finished structure of scientific

domain and not with the processuality of the discursive practices. Now,

a third alternative remains still possible: a theoretical thematization of

scientific research processuality in the framework of a theory that is

beyond the tradit ional context-distinction. By implicat ion, this would

be also a thematization of the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific

research.

It deserves to be mentioned that in his interesting critique of the soci-

ology of scientific knowledge Michael Friedman (1998) stresses also the

need of transcending the traditional context-distinction. He develops his

view from the standpoint of the latter Wittgenstein. Friedman displaysdiscontent with Barnes and Bloors attempt to replace the problematics

of the context of justification (i.e. the traditional epistemological prob-

lems) with the problematics arising out of the sociological case studies of

the local production of scientific knowledge. On his view, this replace-

ment is due to a misinterpretation of Wittgensteins ideas. The author of


21/26


Philosophical Investigations defends by no means a kind of socio-culturalrelativism. Furthermore, he is not reducing philosophy (and the tradi-

tional epistemological notions) to the natural sciences. Wittgenstein holds

with respect to the philosophy-science relationship a non-relativist

antireductionisrn, while the practitioners of cognitive sociology of sci-

ence are committed to a relativist reductionism. It is the latter view that

creates the main trouble in the practice of sociology of scientific knowl-

edge. A social-constructivist approach to scientific research is ground-

lessly asymmetrical in its treatment of the facts of this research and the

facts invoked by the very approach. (This is why the authors supporting

this approach are obliged to defend a kind of second-order realism with

respect to the sociological theories that have to explain the social con-

struction of the natural-scientific facts. The following confession summa-

rizes succinctly the asymmetry in question: I am a scientific realist with

regard to the discourse of the social sciences. By that I mean that the best

explanation for the history of all of our knowledge enterprises is provided

by the best social scientific theories. However, I am an antirealist about

the discourse of the natural sciences, to the extent that I accept the valid-

ity of social constructivist accounts of natural scientific practices. [Fuller

1993, p. XIV]). Yet, because the cognitive sociology of science is itself a

scientific enterprise, an asymmetrical treatment of natural and social real-

ity would be a crucial testimony against the consistency of the

social-constructivist approach. The two groups of facts (the facts about

reality constructed by scientific research and the facts about thesocial-institutional networks in which this research takes place) should

have equal status. In reflecting upon this predicament of cognitive sociol-

ogy of science, Friedman suggests that the practitioner of this enterprise

should scrutinize the historical contexts of formation of her/his own philo-

sophical agenda that legitimizes the realism about the facts invoked by

the social-constructivist approach. Doing empirical studies in sociology

of scientific knowledge is also a multiplicity of linguistic games be-

longing to a certain form of life. Accordingly, if I am correctly under-

standing Friedmans suggestion, the whole enterprise of cognitive sociology

of science should be transformed from an empirical (naturalistic) treat-

ment of scientific practices into a kind of self-reflexive dialogue betweentwo forms of life (social constructivism and natural science) which are

on a par with one another. Does this suggestion eliminate the problem of

reflexivity that is the Achilles heel of cognitive sociology of science? In

other words, does Friedmans critique help in figuring out a third

(Wittgensteinian) way (beyond the naturalism-normativism dilemma) of


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164 DIMITRIGINEV

thematizing scientific research as a multiplicity of discursive practices?My inclination towards a negative answer is determined by the fact that

Friedmans critique does not resolve the problem of the critical dis-

tance I mentioned above. His Wittgensteinian approach does not specify

the dialogical relations between the discursive practices of the theory

of sciences linguistic games and the discursive practices of scientific

research. As a consequence, Friedman is not able to develop his ap-

proach as alternative to both epistemological normativism and

second-order realism/naturalism.

The solution of the problem to the critical distance hinges on the

way of thematizing the hermeneutic fore-structure of scientific research.

Indeed, since the task is to thematize the discursive practices as a

self-constituting processuality of scientific research, the thematization can

neither be designed as a traditional empirical study (like the studies in the

context of discovery), nor can it follow the patterns of a normative ra-

tional reconstruction (designed in the context of justification). The focus

is on the three hermeneutic circles and their interrelatedness. Studying

scientific researchs self-constituting processuality is a sort of double

hermeneutics: one has to enter into an investigatory hermeneutic cir-

cle in thematizing the discursive-practical texture of scientific research,

which on its part involves constitutive hermeneutic circles.15 This dou-

ble hermeneutics assures the critical distance from scientific research

as an object of theoretical thematization. (The studies into the

self-constituting processuality of scientific research are not guided by theepistemological standards of scientific research itself) In achieving this

distance one succeeds to avoid vicious circularity by transforming it into

a hermeneutic circularity.

Thus considered, the theory of the discursive practices taking place in

scientific research forms an independent context of studying science. It is

this context of constitution in which one thematizes the hermeneutic

fore-structure of scientific research. Like philosophical hermeneutics of-

fers a perspective beyond the objectivism-relativism dilemma, the (stud-

ies into the) context of constitution offers a kind of reflecting upon science

beyond normative-epistemological objectivism of the context of justifica-

tion and relativism that follows from narrowing the perspective on sci-ence exclusively to the context of discovery.

Let me finally point out, that the basic characteristics of the studies

carried out in the context of constitution correspond to the three hermeneutic

circles on which scientific research is predicated:


23/26


Starting assumption of these studies is the ontological priority of thepractical horizon of being involved in a research process over the

theoretical attitude;

The studies are neither empirical nor normative, but interpreting the

proto-normativity of hermeneutic circles that are constitutive for sci-

entific research;

The studies are scrutinizing scientific research in its effective-histori-

cal interpretative openness.

Delineating the context of constitution and thematizing the hermeneutic

fore-structure of scientific research serves in achieving two aims. First,

it allows to reformulate many important problems (e.g., the problem of

scientific rationality, the problem of incommensurability, the problem

of demarcating the internal from external history of science, and so on)

posed by the standard (analytical) philosophy of science in an entirely

new framework. Second, it opens up a horizon of new problematizing.

In this regard, the context of constitution invites discourses (hitherto

ignored or prohibited by the analytical philosophy) to dwell on various

non-standard problems in elucidating the nature of scientific research.

Notes

1. The distinction between hermeneutic fore-structure of doing research within ascientific domain and cognitive structure of this domain is akin to Heelans re-

cently suggested distinction between a praxis-laden context where the sentence

refers to something that is in actual use or designated for use in construction

and a theory-laden context where the sentence refers to the physical structure

of something that is under study (Heelan 1997a, p. 280). On Heelans view,

experimental observations should not be called semantically theory-laden but

semantically praxis-laden like all cultural objects of lifeworld-experience. Thus,

the semantic-practical ladenness that is generated from the lifeworld experience

plays the role of a hermeneutic fore-structure of all theory-laden activities in the

research process.

2. The notion of theoretical model I am employing in this paper draws basically on

Suppes (1988) version of the semantic conception of scientific theory.

3. For a full discussion of development and variants of methodical constructivism,

see Janich 1997.

4. To be sure, this hermeneutic circle can be reconstructed and recast in terms of

different kinds of (non-representational and post-foundational) epistemology.

Thus, for example, Herfel and Hooker (1997, pp. 148153) conceive it as a

circulative-regulatory mechanism that operates at many levels of constructing

sciences cognitive content; Ginev (1992) suggests a kind of autopoietic episte-


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166 DIMITRIGINEV

mology in trying to bring to light sciences cognitive self-constitution.5. This is another topics related to Heelans (1997a) distinction between theory-laden

aspect and praxis-laden aspect of scientific research.

6. On this view, see Ginev 1997a, pp. 111121.

7. Proto-normativity can also be characterized as interwovenness of descriptive and

pr es cr ip ti ve as pe ct s in co ns tit ut in g the or et ica l mo de ls . Sc ru ti ni zi ng thi s

interwovenness will show how the articulation of a normative methodology is

related to the semantic articulation of a scientific domain.

8. On this kind of critique of transcendental pragmatics, see Ginev 1997b, pp. 61

73 .

9. To reiterate once again, what is handed down remains partially preserved as

hermeneutic preunderstandings in the constituted theoretical models.

10. A special issue in discussing the interpretative openness of natural-scientific re-

search is the critique of incommensurability thesis. Regardless of how semanti-

cally complete the theoretical models are, there is always a potential for revisionist

plastici ty in the research process that opens up the models for further interpre-

tations and reinterpretations. (See Ginev 1997a, pp. 6175.) There is no theoreti-

cal model that is beyond the fusion of horizons (in this case, the fusion of

discursive practices). Even the classical theoretical models are embedded in

the effective-historical dynamics of discursive practices, whereby they are not

immune to interpretative modifications and revisions. In view of this revisionist

plastici ty, the semantic-epistemic gap between a pair of allegedly incommensu-

rable models (say, a model in Newtonian theory of gravity and a model in gen-

eral relativity) can be filled by studying the continuity of revisionist interpretations

of the first model that leads finally to constructing the second model. The effec-

tive history of scientific research bridges all kinds of semantic incommensurabil-

ity in the development of scientific knowledge.

11. For a discussion of the different lines of critique of context-distinction, seeHeuningen-Huene 1987.

12. In addition, one can make the case that bearing upon the truth and rationality of

science is taken from traditional philosophical approaches to science that sociol-

ogy of scientific knowledge strongly criticized. (On this argument, see Brown

1989).

13. On this argument against cognitive sociology of science, see Cole 1992, pp. 80

85 .

14. To be sure, most of the representatives of cognitive sociology of science are not

satisfied with the Kuhnian view of the normative structure of scientific research.

On this view, the norms that guide the decision making in the research process

are made of the same stuff as the technical knowledge produced in this process.

What the cognitive sociologists are looking for, is an explanation of the genera-

tion of methodological norms in terms of practices that precedes (somehow) the

technical organization of scientific knowledge. (On this point, see Shapin 1995).

But this seems to be only possible within the framework of a theory of the dis-

cursive practices, which is hard to be found in sociology of scientific knowl-

edge.

15. On this formulation of the idea of double hermeneutics, see Ginev 1998.


25/26


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On the Hermeneutic Fore-structure of Scientific Research