PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES: HERMENEUTIC APPROACHES AND

THEIR CRITICS
Ambrosio Velasco Gómez
National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico

Key Words: Action, common sense, critique, culture, empiricism, explanation, hermeneutics,
humanities, interpretation, language, meaning, methodology, naturalism, pluralism, positivism,
rationality, social sciences, scientism, tradition, understanding

Contents
1. Introduction
2. Origins of Contemporary Hermeneutics in Socio-historical Sciences
3. Hermeneutics versus Positivism
4. Max Weber
5. Neurath‟s Criticism to Weber
6. Karl R. Popper‟s Hermeneutics
7. Frankfurt School Criticism to Popper
8. Peter Winch
9. MacIntyre‟s Criticism to Winch‟s Hermeneutics
10. Phenomenological Hermeneutics in Social Science
11. Philosophical Hermeneutics: Gadamer
12. Habermas‟s Critique of Gadamer‟s Philosophical Hermeneutics
13. Paul Ricoeur: An Integrative View of Hermeneutics
Conclusions
Related Chapters
Glossary
Bibliography
Biographical Sketch

Summary
This contribution focuses on hermeneutical approaches in social sciences and humanities in the 20th
century. “Hermeneutical approaches” refers to those perspectives that aim to understand the meanings
of social actions, cultural expressions or historic process rather than explaining them according to
scientific laws, as it is stated by naturalist or monist views.
The opposition between hermeneutical and naturalist conceptions of social sciences has produced
intense debates during the 20th century that have originated continuous changes and diversification in
social sciences and humanities. The reconstruction of these controversies is relevant to understand the
process of change and diversification of hermeneutical perspectives not as failure of social sciences to
set a single paradigm (Kuhn), but rather as a plural tradition that progresses through internal and
external controversies (Laudan, MacIntyre).
The reconstruction of the contemporary hermeneutical tradition starts in the 19th century with the
founding fathers of the so called Geisteswissenschaften or cultural sciences (Herder, Dilthey), who had
a strong influence in the two main hermeneutical branches of the 20th century: methodological
hermeneutics in social sciences, mainly Max Weber, and philosophical hermeneutics, especially
Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer. The analysis of controversies focuses on debates between different
hermeneutical proposals and diverse Marxists approaches, starting with Neurath´s criticism to Weber
and continuing with the polemics between Winch - MacIntyre and Gadamer - Habermas.
At the conclusions we defend the idea that the plurality of approaches in social sciences and humanities
is not a sign of underdevelopment , due to the fact that they do not have a single paradigm as basis for

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normal science, but rather such a plurality is a virtuous condition for constant development and
progress inasmuch plural and reflexive dialogue keep going among all these approaches.

1. Introduction
The distinction between knowledge about facts and structures that occur within the natural realm
responding to fixed and universal laws and knowledge about human deeds and historical events, comes
from antiquity, mainly from Aristotle. He distinguished between theoretical sciences that can explain
facts and constitute true universal and objective knowledge (episteme) and knowledge about historical
processes, human actions, and social institutions that are always changeable and therefore cannot be
explained by universal laws and theories, but only interpreted in particular circumstances, from a
practical point of view (phronesis). Several contemporary philosophers have associated the first kind of
knowledge with formal and natural sciences, mainly physics, and the second kind with human, social or
cultural sciences. So, for example, authors like Cassirer, Von Wright, Habermas, Gadamer or Ricoeur,
beyond relevant differences in their respective approaches, coincide in general terms in associating the
epistemic model of theoretical knowledge to formal and natural sciences, and the phronesis model to
social sciences and humanities.

The old distinction proposed by Aristotle between practical and prudential knowledge, on one hand,
and theoretical and universal sciences, on another, was taken up by Descartes in a more a radical way
since he considered that the only rational and objective knowledge was theoretical, such as
mathematics and physics, but on practical affairs it is impossible to gain any rational and true
knowledge. This dichotomy was based on the assumption that theoretical sciences could be constructed
through rigorous methods of analysis and synthesis and could be expressed in formal language, while
human affairs lack such methods and language and were always affected by civil and religious
authorities. Since Descartes, the theoretical model of science has steadily become dominant.

This new model of natural science based on demonstrative methods and causal explanation was
radically opposed to Aristotle‟s teleological understanding in the dialogues written by Galileo,
especially in Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche in torno á due nuove scienze. Georg Henrik von
Wright, in his famous book Explanation and Understanding, takes this opposition as the remote origin
of two different traditions: the Aristotelian one that corresponds to the hermeneutic dualism that
distinguishes natural from social science and the Galilean that represent the naturalist view of monism
for every science, including social science.

Thomas Hobbes is perhaps the most important advocate to extend the theoretical model of natural
sciences to social sciences, specifically to political theory. Quentin Skinner has studied this theoretical
revolution promoted by Hobbes, based on Euclid‟s geometry and Galileo‟s experimental physics.
During the next two centuries, this naturalistic view of social science became dominant, regardless of
ideological differences. Authors as different as Marx, Comte, Durkheim and John Stuart Mill accepted
and developed the naturalistic model. Marx, for example, holds that the aim of historical is materialism
to discover the general laws that determine with strict necessity the origin, development and change of
social formation. With those general laws it is possible not only to explain, but also to predict social
and historical changes, and this kind of nomological knowledge of history is essential to scientific
socialism. With a different ideology, Comte and Spencer also proposed strict nomological explanations
and predictions of social change and historical progress.

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Thus, the rise and consolidation of the social were based on the assumptions of modern natural sciences
that nomological explanation was the only model of objective and rational knowledge.

The hegemony of the naturalistic model in social sciences was not seriously questioned until the middle
of the 19th century, especially in Germany in the fields of humanities and History. Droysen, Humboldt
and Herder considered that History as an academic discipline does not attempt to discover general laws
to explain or predict historical facts and processes, but rather history searches for specific
understanding of the unique and specific meaning of historical events and human actions. These
German humanists started what Karl Otto Appel calls the explanation-understanding controversy that
extends from the 19th century to the present. Appel distinguishes three stages of this controversy. The
first is represented by the German hermeneutic proposal that we have just mentioned and their
positivist critics. In the second stage, the confrontation is between neopositivists an Wittgensteinian
philosophers. Finally, the last phase of the controversy is the proposal of Georg Henrik von Wright that
tries to integrate causal explanation and understanding of reasons, motives and social rules. Beyond the
question of how appropriate these periods are, what I find very relevant is to focus on controversies and
discussions for analyzing proposals and arguments of the defenders of the heremenutic tradition in
social sciences and humanities. Thus, the structure of this contribution is focused on the proposals of
the leading authors of the heremenutic approach and some of their critics.

2. Origins of Contemporary Hermeneutics in Socio-historical Sciences

In the last decades of 19th century, W. Dilthey systematized the arguments of German historians and
formulated a comprehensive or hermeneutic model for the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften). He
opposed this model to the natural one, since human sciences have differing epistemic aims, and
therefore a methodology from natural sciences. He denies any relevance to general laws in history
because he considers that each country, each nation has a particular culture that defines its specific
development. Thus, there is no universal pattern for social development or historical change as
positivists and Marxists believe. The most important aim of human sciences is understanding the
meaning of social action, cultural products or historical events according to the particular “objective
mind”, or “Objective spirit” that gives identity to each community. By this concept, Dilthey means “the
manifold forms in which what individuals hold in common have objectified themselves in the world of
senses. In this objective mind the past is a permanently enduring present for us. Its realm extends from
the style of life and the forms of social intercourse to the system of purposes which society has created
for itself and to custom, law, state, religion, art, science and philosophy […] it is the medium in which
the understanding of other persons and their life-expressions takes place.”

It is that objective spirit that defines the way each particular person of a given society (community,
nation , social group, etc.) perceives, interprets and acts in the world. In a word, it is the “objective
mind” of each particular community that defines the conditions for the “life experience” of each of
member of that community. Thus, the individual orients himself in the world of objective mind.

In order to have access to the objective mind of a given community, it is necessary to follow a
methodological process to infer from the external and empirical life expressions of the internal content
constituted by the life experience of the actor within the corresponding objective mind. This
interpretative method is a circular process of re-creating the original context and empathically reliving
the experience that constitutes the meaning of the social expressions. “On the basis of this empathy or
transportation there arises the highest form of understanding in which the totality of mental life is
active – recreating or reliving. Understanding as such moves in the reverse order to the sequence of
events”. Thus Dilthey‟s aim is to establish an interpretative method to understand the non-observable
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meaning of life expressions in a way analogous to the natural scientist who tries to infer non-observable
causes from empirical facts. And similarly to the experimental method in natural sciences that try to
simulate causes to produce expected effects, in order to corroborate explanatory hypothesis, in socio-
historical sciences “full empathy depends on understanding moving with the order of events, so that it
keeps steps with the course of life”.

Dilthey‟s hermeneutic proposal opened up an intense debate between hermeneutical and naturalistic
models in social sciences. Those who defended the universality of the model of natural sciences, valid
also for social sciences, were commonly called monist or naturalist, while the advocates of the
hermeneutic model for social sciences were also called dualist.

3. Hermeneutics versus Positivism

According to G.H. von Wright, the positivist conception of science may be summarized into the
following points: methodological monism, that is, there is only one empirical method for every science,
(natural or social); naturalism, that is, natural science, particularly physics is a model for social
sciences; and nomological explanation as the main goal of every scientific research. This view is held
by the main 19th century positivist philosophers such as Comte, Spencer, Mill and Claude Bernard.

John Stuart Mill represents the clearest and most systematic presentation of positivist philosophy of
science in the 19th century. In his System of Logic, published in 1848, he refers to the socio-historical
sciences as “moral sciences”, a translation of the German expression “Geisteswissenschaften”. Against
any metaphysical reference to non-observable entities, such as “objective spirit”, Mill says that “we
have no knowledge of anything but phenomena […] the constant resemblances which unite them as
antecedent and consequent are termed their laws. The laws of phenomena are all that we know
respecting them”. In the search for empirical laws there are no epistemic or methodological substantive
differences between natural and social sciences. Both of them use empirical inductive methods to
discover and prove general laws to explain and predict social facts.

This naturalist conception of social science represents one of the sharpest critiques of the hermeneutic
model and set the terms of epistemic and methodological controversies and disputes that continued
throughout the 20th century between naturalist monists and hermeneutic dualists.

3.1. Max Weber

Max Weber is without a doubt the most influential author in the comprehensive tradition of social
sciences. From his work two different trends develop in the 20th century: one lead by Peter Winch, and
another by Alfred Schütz.

Weber‟s interpretative approach implies a strong criticism of naturalist and positivist orientation in
social science based on the nomological explanation of facts. Although Weber does not exclude the
possibility of explanations based on general laws, the achievement of such kind of explanations does
not constitute the main objective of social sciences. On the contrary, unlike naturalistic approaches,
such as historical materialism that seeks to explain social change in terms of general laws, Max Weber
gives priority to interpreting the specific meaning of social actions, in their particular context,
according to social rules and actors‟ motives.

But Weber‟s interpretative proposal is very different from empathic understanding (“Verstehen”)
defended by Dilthey, since it is not a process of empathy and psychological revival of the actors‟
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experience, but a rigorous process of theoretical modelling and empirical testing. In order to achieve
objective interpretations, Max Weber develops a specific methodology based on “ideal types” that is
specific to social sciences and differs greatly from methodologies for explanations and predictions of
natural sciences.

An ideal type is not a hypothesis to be confirmed, or a model to be transformed into a theory, but a
heuristic model to elucidate two main aspects of action: a) the rational connection between actions and
motives according to the particular social rules of specific circumstances allow specific understanding
of social actions; b) deviation of the real action from the ideal rational behaviour: “When we adopt the
kind of scientific procedure which involves the construction of types, we can investigate and make
fully comprehensible all that rational, affectively determined, patterns of meaning which influence
action, by representing them as “deviations” from a pure type of the action as it would be if it
proceeded in a rationally purposive way”

Thus, social research does not aim to construct general theories, nor to discover social laws, but rather
it uses those theories to arrive at particular interpretations of social actions and historical events
according to their specific culture, social rules and motives. For example in his classical book The
Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, Weber attempts to understand the religious origins of the
motives for accumulating wealth in the form of capital. Beyond the statistical correlation between
countries with high a percentage of protestant population and countries with a high degree of capitalist
development, Weber wants to understand the inner connection of that external correlation. According
to Weber, Calvinist beliefs in predetermination of salvation or damnation of Christians, give rise to
religious motives for generating wealth through intense labour and saving and accumulating money to
create and reproduce capital. The ultimate goal of social science is to understand the deep social
motives of behaviour within a given context. Ideal types are just a heuristic methodological resource to
achieve this specific understanding of social behaviour and social process.

It is important to emphasize that the defining characteristic of social life, according to Weber “is that it
is a rule governed communal life, consisting of reciprocal relationships governed by external rules”,
and those rules to which social agents attach their actions are constitutive of their specific meaning.
Thus, the objective understanding of an action depends on the actor‟s own social and cultural context
that involves beliefs, values, traditions, institutions, and of course common social rules. In the same
way, the rational evaluation of social actions depends on the criteria, norms, values of actors‟ social
situation and not on any external principle or criteria. This consideration implies that social scientists
should restrain from introducing their own values, norms and criteria in interpreting others‟ actions.

Weber recognizes that it is not possible for social scientists to put away their value judgements. These
judgments will always influence the selection of problems, concepts and theoretical frameworks, as
well as the construction of hypotheses. While the social scientist cannot eliminate value judgements, he
must distinguish them from factual considerations and methodological arguments that lead to the
justification of the interpretative hypothesis.

This rule for objectivity is an ethical principle. It is an obligation to clarify to ourselves and to others,
the limits between value and fact or theoretical judgements as well as to distinguish our own values and
criteria from those of the actors. Thus, for Weber, the principle objectivity and integrity is that the
scientist “imposes on himself the unconditional obligation of rigorously making clear to his audience,
and above all to himself, in each individual case which of his statements on that occasion is an
assertion of fact, either logically demonstrable or empirically observable, and which a practical value
judgment.” According to the intellectual obligation for the social scientist to distinguish, not to exclude
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his own value judgments from factual or theoretical statements, Weber considers that social science
cannot serve as a basis to justify the superiority of a moral or ideological system over another. In
general, science cannot justify ethical or political principles or goals. This view represents a strong
criticism to prevailing scientism, i.e., the idea that science has political privileges. Such criticisms to
scientism would be developed later in the second half of the 20th century by very diverse philosophers
like Michael Oakshott, Jürgen Habermas and Hans G. Gadamer, among others.

3.2. Neurath’s Criticism to Weber

The earliest and strongest criticism of Weber‟s hermeneutic proposal was launched by logical
positivism, particularly by one of its founding fathers, Otto Neurath. His critique of Max Weber and, in
general, of the hermeneutic tradition of social science is not only epistemological and methodological,
but also ethical and political. First, Neurath denounces the metaphysical character of Weberian
sociology since its language is not physicalist: “Weber‟s metaphysical starting-point impeded his
scientific work, and determined unfavorably his selection of observation-statements. But without a
suitable selection of observation-statements there can be no fruitful scientific work”. Secondly, Neurath
categorically rejects that Verstehen or empathic understanding is a reliable method. At best it can be a
heuristic auxiliary, like a cup of coffee, but it does not take part in the process of justification of
knowledge. Neurath, following John Stuart Mill, considers that the purpose of social science, as it is of
every science, is to look for empirical correlations for formulating and testing general hypotheses and
laws that explain and predict social events. Only in this way it is possible that scientific knowledge of
all disciplines can help control social process and ultimately promote the wellbeing of humanity.

In addition, Neurath points out that the epistemological and methodological mistakes of Weberian
sociology have serious political implications. Since comprehensive Sociology cannot explain the real
causes of exploitation and domination in capitalist societies, it cannot help people to emancipate
themselves from unjust social relationships.

Consequently, Otto Neurath considers that it cannot be left to social scientists the decision to choose
between a hermeneutic or physicalist perspective. The physicalist conception must be ensured, for both
epistemic and political reasons: “Even if the practical effect of the doctrines on which the school of
„moral sciences‟ is based are not over-rated, even if the confusion in empirical investigation wrought
by it is not exaggerated, still, in the systematic establishment of physicalism in sociology, clarity
requires that a clean sweep be made here. It is the duty of the practitioners of unified science to take a
determined position against such distinctions; this is not a matter for their arbitrary choice”

For Neurath, historical materialism is a paradigm of physicalism in social sciences: “Marxism is, to a
higher degree than any other present-day sociological theory, a system of empirical sociology. The
most important Marxist theses employed for prediction are either already formulated in a fairly
physicalistic fashion (so far as traditional language made this possible), or they can be so formulated,
without the loss of anything essential” (Ibidem, p. 309). But his defence of historical materialism as a
rigorous science is not only based on the physicalist language and empiricist methodology, which
supposedly Marx follows, but also on the claim that historical materialism provides a scientific basis
for the transformation of capitalist society into a socialist one. This is a clear scientist position that
recognizes Marxism as a social science with epistemic and, overall, political superiority, in relation to
other approaches in social sciences.

This critical reaction of Neurath against Max Weber‟s hermeneutic sociology has no further response
for Weber himself, but established the central arguments that several distinguished empiricist
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philosophers of science, like Carl Hempel, posed against hermeneutics in social sciences, who
defended the centrality of nomological explantations as the main if not the only epistemic goal of social
sciences. Most of them not only rejected the hermeneutic approach and defended a monistic and
naturalistic view of social sciences, but also regarded them as underdeveloped sciences as compared
with natural sciences, since the former does not fully accomplish the linguistic, methodological and
epistemological characteristics of the scientific model as natural sciences do. So, for example, Carl
Hempel argued that even though general laws are as important in social sciences as in physics,
“Biology or Chemistry, sheer importance are not generally acknowledged since social Laws are
obvious and imprecisely formulated”

Popper is a remarkable exception among empiricist philosophers of science and defends the
hermeneutic approach not only in social science, but also in natural science.

3.3. Karl R. Popper’s Hermeneutics

Popper‟s contribution to hermeneutics in the social sciences is an issue that has barely been explored.
Popper did not just restrict himself to proposing a philosophical model of scientific change, but he also
put forward a hermeneutic methodology for understanding changes in scientific traditions. Insofar as
scientific traditions are historical, social events, Popper agreed that his study largely corresponded to
the socio-historical sciences. It is perhaps for this reason that Popper was decidedly interested in the
methodology of social sciences, particularly hermeneutic methodology. This interest led Popper to
radically distance himself from the positivist conceptions of the social sciences.

Contrary to the positivist conceptions of science, such as J. S. Mill or Otto Neurath, Popper accepted
the fact that understanding was the goal of the social sciences and the humanities. Contrary to the
hermeneutic conceptions of the socio-historical sciences such as those of Dilthey and Collingwood,
however, Popper believed that understanding was not exclusive to social sciences, or to the humanities,
but was also the goal of all science. In this respect, Popper criticizes both the positivists, who
mistakenly sought to impose a natural science model on any discipline, and the hermeneutic humanists,
who uncritically accepted the fact that “positivism or scientism is the only philosophy appropriate for
natural sciences”.

In addition to this uncritical acceptance of the positivist conception of natural sciences, Popper
questions the subjective nature of empathetic understanding proposed by Dilthey and Collingwood.
Instead of Verstehen or empathetic understanding, Popper proposed situational analysis as a method of
objective understanding. This method involves reconstructing the “problematic situation” of the
scientist or in general of any agent whose works require understanding. The problematic situation
consists of the problem to which the theory seeks to respond and the “background” or “cognitive
framework” in which the author raises the problem and attempts to resolve it. “This background
consists, at least, of the language that always incorporates many theories in the very structure of its
usages and of many other theoretical assumptions, unchallenged at least for the time being.”

It is essential to stress the idea of background, precisely because it defines a set situation that enables
one to raise certain problems, make conjectures for certain solutions and critically assess them. I
believe that this notion of background may be replaced by the concept of tradition that Popper develops
in other texts.

Background or specific traditions constitute an essential linguistic and theoretical framework for
understanding the scientific theories of the past and for evaluating the author‟s rationality for proposing
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and defending them. Imposing theories or concepts from outside the author‟s context to evaluate the
rationality of his theories and arguments always constitutes a “failure of historical understanding”.
Thus, the “method of situational analysis may be described as an application of the rationality
principle” since it attempts to discover the reasons why a scientist accepted or rejected certain
hypotheses within his particular context. Popper cites “the superiority of the third world method –
consisting of critically constructing problematic situations – over that of the second world, consisting
of intuitively reviving a personal experience”.

By proposing situational analysis as a method for understanding the rationality of actions and human
products, Popper was obviously not implying recognition of the success of the action. Thus, for
example, in the case of Galileo‟s theory of tides, which Popper recognizes as false from the outset, he
shows the rationality underlying Galileo‟s decision to maintain the hypothesis of the Earth‟s circular
movement. In contrast to Galileo‟s critics who accused him of being dogmatic, Popper pointed out that
“Galileo‟s method was correct when he tried to proceed as far as possible with the help of the rational
conservation law of rotary motions”. Popper explained that the failure of Galileo‟s theory of tides was
not due to a failure of rationality in his reasoning, but rather to a flaw in the framework or background
of his particular problematic situation.

The superiority of the situational analysis method is based on the fact that the historical understanding
of actions or works from the past does not require doubtful psychological skills on the part of the
historian, but rather a reconstruction of historically identifiable cultural objects (objects from the third
world), from which the problems, responses and arguments of the author or agent whose works are
being studied are constructed.

Popper does not ignore the important function of the author or agent in the maintenance and
transformation of traditions, since although they define limits for posing problems and solving them,
they are also an object of questioning, criticism and dissatisfaction on the part of the author, which
promote changes and innovations (that are either imperceptible or revolutionary) within the same
traditions that are handed down to them, by posing new and challenging problems: “The history of
sciences must not be taken as a history of theories but rather as a history of problematic situations and
their modifications (sometimes imperceptible, sometimes revolutionary) through the interventions of
attempts to solve the problems.”

3.5. Frankfurt School Criticism to Popper

Popper‟s view of science and especially of social science was questioned by outstanding Marxist
philosophers and social scientists of the so-called Frankfurt School, mainly Theodor Adorno and
Jürgen Habermas. This debate took place in 1961 in the Congress of the German Association of
Sociology. To understand this controversy it is important to recall that Popper considered that historical
materialism is pseudoscientific, since their fundamental laws are not empirically refutable. In addition,
in his book, The Poverty of Historicism, Popper says that in social sciences and history it is impossible
to make great predictions as historical materialism tries to make. Such supposed predictions are rather
an ideological projection or political prophecies.

In his criticism to Popper, Adorno does not pay especial attention to this criticism, but rather, he
focuses on the epistemological assumption of Popper‟s conception of social science. According to
Adorno, Popper is excessively concerned with methodological problems and with mere theoretical
criticism, and if this is appropriate for natural science (empirical analytic sciences in Habermas‟s
terms), it is not adequate for social sciences. The main concern of social science is the critique of social
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reality in order to transform the real world to overcome unjust economic exploitation and political
domination. In fact, Adorno opposes a different conception of social science, be it critical or dialectical,
that is coherent with Marx‟s thesis on Feuerbach, while Popper holds a more “traditional” conception
of science, based on strict epistemological criteria and methodological procedures. Unfortunately,
neither Adorno nor Habermas discuss Popper‟s hermeneutic proposal for social sciences. Rather than a
philosophical debate, this philosophical exchange is a confrontation of different conceptions of science.
But the most interesting aspect of this confrontation is the emergence of a new philosophical problem:
the capacity of social theories and interpretations to critique and transform social reality. We will return
to this problem later in the debate between Habermas and Gadamer.

3.6. Peter Winch

By the time Popper debated with Adorno and Habermas, Peter Winch published in 1958 The Idea of a
Social Science, against the prevailing empiricist naturalistic view in social science. In this book, based
on Weber and Wittgenstein, he defended a hermeneutical approach for social sciences. Winch is even
more contextualist than Weber, since does not consider that theoretical ideal types are necessary to
formulate interpretative hypothesis. For Winch, understanding the meaning of social actions requires
relating observational behaviour of social agents to intersubjective rules that determine the motives
intentions and, more generally, the rationality of an action. Most of these rules are tacit and agents are
not normally conscious of them. Thus, common and specific social rules constitute the main reference
to understand the meaning of actions.

Winch clarifies the difference between social rules and scientific laws. The former are made by human
beings as result of custom, traditions, conventions or agreements and usually are observed, but they can
be ignored, or violated with some social consequences. Acting against a social rule when it is necessary
in particular contexts is at least acting not rationally. In this sense, social rules are also normative
standards for social actions. In the case of scientific laws, they are supposed to exist independently of
human will, or social traditions, are not bound to particular contexts and in the case that some relevant
actions represent a contradiction of a scientific law, then the law is refuted.

From this hermeneutic perspective, understanding the action and evaluating its rationality must be done
from the internal point of view of the community of the agents (emic perspective, in terms of cultural
anthropology), and not from an external perspective (etic approach). Consequently, Winch thinks that
the task of social scientists is to interpret social actions as the actor himself understands them, in a
similar way that understanding a speech act involves elucidating its meaning according to the specific
context and rules of the particular language game that is the case. The task of social science is very
similar to the task of philosophy according to Wittgenstein: elucidating the meaning of actions (words)
according to specific social rules in particular contexts. Therefore, Winch denies any relevance to
external nomological explanations to social actions, since they do not help neither to understand the
meaning of actions nor to evaluate their rationality, according to actor‟s terms.

Winch had a strong influence on several important social scientists, especially in the cultural aspect.
For example, Clifford Geertz adopts a very similar perspective. For him ethnographic understanding a
social action amounts to giving a “Thick description” of it and this involves elucidating not only the
intentions or purpose of actor‟s behavior, but also the set of social rules, beliefs and institutions that
constitute the specific contexts. But other scientists and philosophers of social science strongly
criticized the relativistic implications of Winch‟s hermeneutic approach.

3.7. MacIntyre’s Criticism to Winch’s Hermeneutics

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The most important criticism to Winch‟s proposal came not from defenders of empiricist naturalism,
but rather from Marxism. Alasdair MacIntyre published a critical article with the same title of Winch‟s
book (“The Idea of a Social Science”). In this paper, MacIntyre acknowledged the significance of
Winch‟s criticism to empiricism in social sciences and accepted that understanding social actions from
the point of view of social agents is a necessary but preliminary step in social research. The problem
with Winch according to MacIntyre is that Winch takes a preliminary step as if it were the whole work
of social inquiry. MacIntyre considers that it is necessary to make a further critical explanation of
social action to determine whether or not the self interpretations of agents of their own actions are
objective and rational. Otherwise, social theory would lose its critical potential on social reality. To be
critical, it is necessary to introduce external causal explanations to uncover and criticize false social
consciousness.

Based on these arguments, MacIntyre concludes that the fundamental strength of Winch‟s book is, at
the same time, its major flaw, that is, while Winch correctly recognizes the relevance of the description
and understanding of the action from the point of view of the agent, he makes a mistake thinking that
this is sufficient. It is only a necessary and preparatory stage for explanation: “The positive value of
Winch‟s book is partly as a corrective to the Durkheimian position which he rightly castigates. But it is
more than a corrective because what Winch characterizes as the whole task of the social sciences is in
fact their true starting-point. Unless we begin by a characterization of a society in its own terms, we
shall be unable to identify the matter that requires explanation. Attention to intentions, motives and
reasons must precede attention to causes; description in terms of the agent‟s concepts and beliefs must
precede description in terms of our concepts and beliefs.

Thus, MacIntyre proposes a kind of integration of hermeneutic and understanding and lawful and
causal explanation that presents subjective and ideological distortion.

In his article “Understanding a Primitive Society” (1964)., Peter Winch responds to MacIntyre‟s
criticisms, and particularly, to the point of the relevance for external explanations and criticism of an
agent‟s beliefs and actions. According to Winch‟s view, this is unacceptable because it presupposes an
ethnocentric attitude of the scientist who decides from his own culture and criteria which of agents‟
beliefs and acts are objective and rational and which are not and must be corrected. Therefore, Winch
rejects MacIntyre‟s assumption about the epistemic, and the political priority of the scientist‟s social
theories in relation to the culture of the actors. For Winch, epistemic, ethical and ideological autonomy
is essential and the imposition of concepts, laws and external criteria for judging and evaluating the
rationality of beliefs, practices and institutions of a community is not justified in any way. Criticism of
social life in a given community has to be a dialogical and reflexive process since there is no epistemic
or political priority of science over the traditional knowledge of a community. In this sense, as
objective and rational are beliefs and action of members of a primitive society such as the Azandi in
Africa, as the ores of a modern urban sully as London. Thus, rational criticism that social sciences can
provide is primarily a question of “learning from” other cultures rather than judging the beliefs and
ways of life of other cultures. This is the critical reflection that hermeneutic understanding of social
actions can provide.

In this dispute, MacIntyre became convinced of Peter Winch‟s relativistic hermeneutic approach and
later wrote an interesting book about political theory, Whose Justice? Which Rationality? In this book,
MacIntyre argues, following Peter Winch, that the only criterion to evaluate the supposed superiority of
a culture over others resides in its capacity to understand other cultures and learn critically from them.

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4. Phenomenological Hermeneutics in Social Science

From a very different perspective but with strong convergences with Winch, Alfred Schütz developed
an original and also very influential perspective based on Husserl‟s and Heidegger‟s phenomenology.
The central idea that Schütz takes from these two philosophers is that understanding is not only a form
of knowledge specific to humanities and socio-historical sciences, but rather and mainly it is the
primordial way for the human being to exist in the world. Thus, the hermeneutic task in human
sciences is basically an interpretation about how members of a given community understand each other
and the world they live in their daily life. This “world–life” includes every social and cultural condition
that makes mutual understanding possible, and is usually taken for granted in what is properly called
“common sense”: “The world of everyday life is taken for granted by our common sense thinking and
thus receives the accent of reality as long as our practical experiences prove the unity and congruency
of this world as valid. Even more, this reality seems to us to be the natural one.” It is clear that from
this interpretative construction of reality, what is false or true, rational or irrational, correct or incorrect
depends on the specific common sense of each particular society. To understand the meaning of an
action drawing from the tacit knowledge of actors‟ common sense, the social scientist does not use
ideal types as Weber suggested, but rather, the scientist must reconstruct actor‟s process of clasification
of their own actions, and, in this way, grasp “the already constituted meanings of active participants in
the social world.”

Schütz‟s hermeneutic proposal is the origin of an important sociological orientation:

ethnomethodology. Representatives of this school as Garfinkel, Cicourel, and in some aspects, Clifford
Geertz, Peter Berger and, more recently, Anthony Giddens developed methods for grasping the
meaning of actions from the complex of tacit knowledge immersed in common sense.

Giddens, following Schütz‟s central thesis, concludes his book New Rules for Sociological Methods,
stating that “sociology, unlike natural science, deals with a pre-interpreted world, were the creation and
reproduction of meaning frames is a very condition of that which it seeks to analyse, namely human
social conduct: this is why there is a double hermeneutic in the social sciences […] the observing social
scientist has to be able first to grasp those lay concepts, i.e. penetrate hermeneutically the form of life
whose features he wishes to analyse or explain”. But differing from Schütz and other
ethnomethodologists, he tries to avoid relativistic implications concerning the objectivity and
rationality of beliefs in terms of each particular common sense: “The logical status of the knowledge
applied by social actors in the production and reproduction of social systems […] has to be considered
on two levels. On the methodological level, what I label „mutual knowledge‟ is a non corrigible
resource which the social analyst necessarily depends upon as the medium to generate „valid‟
descriptions of social life. But […] [this] is a distinct issue from the validity of knowledge as belief
claim constituted in the discourse of social actors”. The problem with this distinction between the
validity of the description of beliefs and the epistemic validity of the belief itself is that Giddens is
introducing an external criteria to actors‟ common sense, and this involves an ethnocentric attitude on
the part of the social scientist, as Winch argues against MacIntyre. This problem also appears in the
Gadamer-Habermas debate as we will see in the next pages.

5. Philosophical Hermeneutics: Gadamer

The idea that hermeneutic understanding has a critical potential to reflectively criticize and review
assumptions , principles, values, norms and beliefs of the interpreter‟s own culture is the central thesis
of a quite different perspective in contemporary hermeneutics, usually called philosophical
hermeneutics. Hans Georg Gadamer is the most important representative of this perspective.
11
In his most influential book, Truth and Method, Gadamer criticised the main stream of hermeneutics in
social science, mainly Dilthey‟s hermeneutics, for being excessively concerned with methodological
problems. Instead of developing a methodological perspective for interpretation, based on Heidegger‟s
hermeneutics and retrieving Vito‟s conception of common sense and Aristotle‟s notion of phronesis, he
defended a conception of humanities, mainly philology, philosophy and history, based on edifying
plural dialogue between different cultures.

As a matter of fact, it is difficult to place Gadamer‟s Truth and Method as a central work in the
philosophy of social sciences, but it is Habermas‟s critique that brings Gadamer to the centre of
discourse in social sciences. Habermas acknowledges the important contributions of Gadamer in the
philosophy of social sciences. Habermas considers that Gadamer‟s hermeneutic conception of the
progressive development of the tradition represents an important advancement compared to
Wittgenstein‟s conception of language. Gadamer‟s contribution consists in overcoming the parochial
and culturally closed conception of language games and their corresponding forms of social life.
Habermas also accepts that Gadamer‟s concept of tradition represents an accurate critique to
objectivism and scientistic rationality.

Gadamer fosters an ontological hermeneutics that radically differs from the methodological
hermeneutical approach proposed by Weber or Winch. His ontological view consists mainly in
conceiving understanding as the process of historical development of human beings, rather than a form
of knowledge. Such an historical process is what Gadamer calls “Tradition”. For Gadamer, tradition,
though fundamentally conservative, does not exclude change and transformation. What is transmitted
by tradition can be criticized, corrected and substituted. Conversely, “in ages of revolution, far more of
the old is preserved in the supposed transformation of everything than anyone knows, and it combines
with the new to create a new value”. Thus, conservation and change are integrated in the movement of
tradition.

Gadamer also rejects the idea that traditions are monolithic and unambiguous. In contrast, the essence
of tradition is “a variety of voices in which the echo of the past is heard.” This idea of the multiplicity
of voices of tradition suggests that, far from being an object, tradition is like a partner that can only be
present if the interpreter is willing to listen: “But tradition is not simply a process that experience
teaches us to know and govern; it is language – i.e., it expresses itself like a Thou. A Thou is not an
object; it relates itself to us. […] For tradition is a genuine partner in dialogue, and we belong to it, as
does the I with a Thou.”

Understanding is a hermeneutic fusion of horizons: the horizon of the past that conveys the tradition
and the horizon of the present, defined by the personal prejudices of the hermeneutical situation of the
interpreter. While prejudice determines understanding the tradition, the dialogue established, if the
dialogue is genuine, sets in motion the prejudices which the interpreter had inherited, making it
possible to rationally criticize them: “[…] a hermeneutical situation is determined by the prejudices that
we bring with us. They constitute, then the horizon of a particular present, for they represent that
beyond which it is impossible to see […]. In fact the horizon of the present is continually in the process
of being formed because we continuously have to test all our prejudices. An important part of this
testing occurs in encountering the past and in understanding the tradition from which we come […]
understanding is always the fusion of those horizons supposedly existing by themselves”. Thus,
Gadamer defends the rationality of traditions as an expression of the historicity of every authentic
knowledge, scientific or not: “It seems to me, however, that there is no such unconditional antithesis
between tradition and reason […] Even the most genuine and pure tradition does not persist because of
12
the inertia of what once existed. It needs to be affirmed, embraced, cultivated. It is, essentially,
preservation, and it is active in all historical change. But preservation is an act of reason, though an
inconspicuous one.” In a similar way to Popper‟s conception of rationality expressed in an article
“Toward a Rational Theory of Tradition” and in opposition to the main stream of modern rationalism,
Gadamer also defends the traditional character of all rationality.

6. Habermas’s Critique of Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics

Habermas believes that the hermeneutic conception of Gadamer has severe limitations: one of them is
Gadamer‟s emphasis on the authority of the prejudices recognized and reinforced by tradition. Such
authority is an illegitimate protection of prejudices. In this sense, “Gadamer‟s prejudice in favor of the
legitimacy of prejudices (or prejudgments) validated by tradition is in conflict with the power of
reflection, which proves itself in its ability to reject the claim of traditions”. Unlike Gadamer,
Habermas places more emphasis on the critical function of the hermeneutic reflection rather than in its
conservative role and associates rationality not with recognition of the authority of the prejudices, but
on the contrary, with criticism and rejection of such authority.

According to Habermas, hermeneutics has no universal criterion to discriminate true prejudices from
false prejudices hidden by distorting mechanisms. Thus, for Habermas, it is necessary to resort to
“critical theories” such as psychoanalysis or historical materialism that provides explanatory causal
laws to uncover and disarticulate such distorting mechanisms of communication: “Now we have
learned from hermeneutics that so long as we have to do with natural language we are always interested
participants and cannot escape from the role of the reflective playing partner. We thus have no
universal criterion at our disposal which would tell us when we are caught up in the false consciousness
of pseudonormal understanding and are viewing something merely as the kind of difficulty which
hermeneutics can clarify, when in fact it requires systematic explanation.”

In response, Gadamer holds that the hermeneutic reflection, although it does not offer a criterion for
truth, it takes into account power relations and may actually promote critical reflection and
emancipation. But Gadamer does not consider this limitation of philosophical hermeneutics as a
weakness or fault. On the contrary, he affirms that any universal criterion of truth or a general theory of
rationality that is postulated beyond public discourse and consensus is suspicious.

Thus, the dispute is driven into a dilemma between universalistic theories that provide reliable criteria
of rationality, but involves a monopoly of truth, that excludes public dialogue and consensus, on the
one hand, and consensus based on public and free communication, but lacking universal principles of
rationality and truth, on the other. Gadamer chooses the second option, in accordance with ethical and
political considerations.

7. Paul Ricoeur: An Integrative View of Hermeneutics

By the end of the 20th century, hermeneutics had become a broad and complex field of study in which
there is a plurality of perspectives and approaches. According to epistemic interests, it is possible to
distinguish two different branches and scopes which concern ontological, ethical and aesthetical
problems. As we have seen, this orientation has its origins in phenomenology, mainly in Husserl and
Heidegger, and its most important representative is Hans Georg Gadamer. From his view,
understanding is rather a primordial way of existing in the world, and therefore the relevance of
interpretations are mainly ontological and epistemic issues are not central. From Heidegger‟s and
Gadamer‟s perspective, it is a mistake to conceive hermeneutics as merely an epistemic model and
13
methodological model for humanities and social sciences. The most important task of philosophical
hermeneutics is to elucidate the conditions, presuppositions and consequences of understanding for
human beings. The most important condition that Heidegger and Gadamer highlight is that every
interpretation always assumes some prejudices as a consequence of the historical constitution of human
beings, and rather it is not possible to achieve objective interpretations free of interpreters‟ own beliefs,
attitudes and values. No method can suspend or place those prejudices between brackets since they are
constitutive of interpreters‟ historicity. This dramatic conclusion of philosophical hermeneutics is in
conflict with the main task of the other orientation in contemporary hermeneutics that search for
rigorous methods to achieve objective interpretations.

This conflict appears to be an aporia, and unfortunately very few hermeneutical philosophers and even
less hermeneutical social scientists have tried to promote an edifying dialogue between these two great
orientations of contemporary hermeneutics.

The exception is Paul Ricoeur who continuously discusses and mediates between philosophers and
social scientists and constantly tries to integrate ontological, ethical, epistemological and
methodological arguments. In this paper I will focus in his narrative hermeneutical proposal as his most
important contribution to contemporary hermeneutics.

As mentioned above, Ricoeur tries to provide an ontological justification to his methodological

proposal. From phenomenological hermeneutics, he takes very seriously the idea about the historicity
of human beings, and consequently the unavoidable presence of prejudices in any interpretation.
Understanding historicity as the primordial constitution of human beings is certainly an ontological
task, but the fulfillment of this task requires an adequate epistemic and methodological approach.
Drawing from literary theory, Ricoeur considers that the construction of narrative arguments is the
most adequate interpretative methodology for human sciences, precisely because human beings have a
narrative constitution, and their actions are always embedded in narrative plots. “In other words – says
Ricoeur – the form of life to which narrative discourse belongs is our historical condition itself.” Even
more radically, Ricoeur not only points out a strong analogy or resemblance between historicity and
narration, but he also believes that narrative understanding is an outcome of history and this why in
most languages the same word (history) is used to mean the historical process and the activity to tell a
narrative story of that process: “We are members of the field of historicity as story tellers, as novelist,
as historians. We belong to history before telling stories or writing history. The game of telling is
included in the reality told. That is undoubtedly why […] the word „history‟ preserves in many
languages the rich ambiguity of designating both the course of recounted events and the narrative that
we construct. For they belong together”.

In Time and Narration, once he has given an ontological foundation for his narrative proposal, he
makes a detailed review of narrative methodologies in history and literary theory, and from this critical
review he constructs a general model of narrative arguments that distinguish two main aspects: “Any
narrative combines in varying proportions, two dimensions: a chronological dimension and a non
chronological dimension. The first can be called, episodic dimension of the narrative”, the second one
is the configurational dimension. The latter seeks to construct the most complete scenario where
actions take place. Here the interpreter reconstructs the complex relations between actor, the conditions
to which they are subjected, the alternatives and dilemmas on which they reflect, the decisions, means,
ends, course of actions and consequences that affect and transform the given scenario. The construction
of arguments that allow comprehension, the change from one scenario to the next on, that is, building
the plot across successive scenarios, is precisely the function of the episodic dimension. The
construction of narratives accepts an enormous variety of methodological resources, including ideal
14
types, intentions or rules following understanding, even nomological explanation, in as much as every
one of them contributes to make more intelligible the directedness of the plot of the argument and more
rational the conclusion of the whole narration. In this sense, the conclusion of the story is the pole of
attraction of the whole process. But a narrative conclusion can be neither deduced nor predicted. There
is no story unless our attention is held in suspense by a thousand contingencies. Hence we must follow
the story to its conclusion. So, rather than being predictable, a conclusion must be acceptable. Looking
back from the conclusion towards the episodes which led up to it, we must be able to say that this end
required those events and that change of action.

Conclusions

Among the different authors that we have discussed it is clear that contemporary hermeneutics does not
constitute a homogeneous intellectual tradition or a paradigm in the Kuhnian sense. Rather,
hermeneutics can be characterized as a plurality of theoretical approaches and methodological
proposals in social sciences and humanities. In general terms, such a diversity of perspectives can be
classified into two broad fields: methodological and philosophical hermeneutics. The first came about
in mid 19th century against the dominant naturalist paradigm, and the main purpose of this approach
was to offer an alternative epistemological and methodological model for social sciences and
humanities. The second field, created in the first decades of 20th century, represented a profound
criticism to modern rationalism and focused on a deep critique of excessive confidence in
methodology. Consequently, rather than promoting an alternative model for human sciences,
philosophical hermeneutics founded on the ontological aspects of human understanding. But within
each of these broad branches of contemporary hermeneutics there is also a plurality of proposals and
sharp controversies, most of them unresolved. But the persistency of debates around essential problems
does not mean that hermeneutics as a broad and plural intellectual tradition has failed to progress.
Throughout the debates and controversies, it is possible to distinguish successive trends that can be
retrospectively interpreted as a progressive process.

First, at the very origins of contemporary hermeneutics, Dilthey and Ricoeur observed a shift toward
decompartmentalization of hermeneutics from textual interpretation in philology and theology to
understanding of any cultural expression, social action or historical process. Humboldt, Herder,
Droysen, Dilthey and Rickert are the outstanding authors of this first stage. Weber represents a second
stage, within methodological hermeneutics when be criticizes traces of subjective psychologism and
the weakness of empathic understanding in his predecessors. Instead, Weber‟s intention is the
replacement of reliving authors experience by a more objective sociological aspect such as
intersubjective social rules, and he introduces a more rigorous methodology based on theoretical
models (ideal types). Later on, Popper and Winch will develop analytical proposals inspired by this
sociological trend introduced by Weber. But the most radical shift and even rupture in contemporary
hermeneutics occurs in the phenomenological movement initiated by Husserl and Heidegger.
Especially for Heidegger, as we discussed above, understanding is primordially for human beings a
way of being in the world, and secondarily an alternative way of knowing the world. This ontological
shift has become predominant in postmodern philosophy, in detriment of methodological hermeneutics.
Nonetheless, within phenomenological hermeneutics there are few but very brilliant authors that have
attempted to recover ontological aspects of understanding in order to develop original ethical-
aesthetical perspective (Gadamer) or methodological approaches (Schütz and ethnomethodologists).
Finally we may point out the emergence of a critical-political heremenutical dimension in the debates
between Habermas and Gadamer or MacIntyre and Winch. From this narrative reconstruction of the
historical stages of contemporary hermeneutics we can reveal a progressive plot that needs to be
recovered and continued nowadays. Thus, contemporary hermeneutics is a very plural and dynamic
15
field in social sciences and humanities with important potentialities to continue its progressive
development. To actualize these progressive potentialities at least two urgent tasks are required.

The first task is to clarify within debates and controversies the central questions and dilemmas that
refer to profound problems and conflicts in the philosophy of social sciences and humanities.

First of all, the conflict between explanation and understanding: From the point of view Habermas,
MacIntyre and Neurath nomological explanation has a higher epistemic and critical level than
understanding. On the contrary, for Dilthey, Weber Winch and Gadamer understanding is the only or
the most appropriate form of knowledge of social and human reality. Secondly there is a conflict
between internal (emic) and external (etic) account of society and culture. Hermeneutical authors give
priority to the point of view of actors themselves, while critics of hermeneutics considers that an
external account based on scientist‟s theories is essential for the rationality and objectivity of social
sciences. Finally there is also a conflict between general versus contextual knowledge of societies and
cultures. And under all these disputes remains the conflict between theoretical rationality and practical-
prudential rationality.

But the conflicts are not only between the naturalistic and hermeneutic oriented perspectives, but also
within the hermeneutic tradition. This is clear when we compare methodological hermeneutics that is
mainly concerned with epistemic aspects of interpretation (Dilthey, Weber, Popper, Winch), with
philosophical hermeneutics (Heidegger, Gadamer), centered on ontological and ethical questions of
understanding. There is also an opposition between hermeneutics of suspicion (MacIntyre, Habermas)
and the hermeneutics of recovery (Dilthey, Gadamer, Winch).

All these persistent problems and controversies remain unsolved due to the lack of discussion among
the representatives of these different approaches and perspectives in the last decades. With rare
exceptions, naturalist social scientists do not engage in serious debates with hermeneutic scientists and
humanists, nor do hermeneutical philosophers discuss with hermeneutic social scientists. Among the
most outstanding exceptions we should mention Paul Ricoeur who has attempted to integrate
interpretative and explanatory methodologies, ontological and methodological hermeneutics as well as
critical theory and the hermeneutics of recovery.

Drawing from Ricoeur, I think that contemporary philosophy of social sciences should promote a
pluralist dialogue of diverse perspectives and approaches in social sciences and humanities, not with
the purpose of unifying this diversity, which is impossible, but rather with the aim to clarify the
tensions and find out possibilities of complementary relations between different approaches. From the
analysis of the discussions analyzed above, we can highlight several relationships marked by tension:
 Nomological explanation – Comprehensive interpretation.
 Theoretical account – Contextual account.
 Etic (external) – Emic (internal) account of social actions.
 Empathic understanding – Rule-following understanding.
 Situational analysis – Historical interpretation.
 Critical understanding – Recovery understanding
 Ontological understanding – Methodological understanding
 Methodological rationality – Prudential rationality.

All these oppositions must be considered as poles of a continuum that accept many complementary
mediations according to specific requirements of each particular research. There is no need to exclude

16
or proscribe any particular approach or methodological resource. On the contrary, the plurality of
perspectives and methodologies that we have discussed contributes to enrich and develop our
knowledge of the diversity of societies and cultures.

The second urgent ask is to reflect and discuss on the question about the most important social
problems to which hermeneutics can contribute to understand and resolve. I suggest that one of these
problems is cultural diversity within and among nations.

From the 16th to the 20th century, cultural diversity has been considered an obstacle for progress and
development of modernity. Especially, Latin American cultures and civilizations have been
misunderstood as barbarian or underdeveloped from Eurocentric or Anglo-American colonialist
perspectives. Similarly, within modern nation states that have attempted to impose a homogeneous
modern culture among the diversity of communities and people, the persistence of indigenous
languages and cultures and ways of life is considered as a problem that needs to be overcome (internal
colonialism). This ethnocentric point of view is not only epistemically false, but it is also ethically
unacceptable and socially unjust, and even more, it is one of the most important causes of social and
political conflicts, including wars, today. Since hermeneutics is mainly concerned with rationally
understanding distinct and distant cultures, hermeneutic-oriented humanities and social sciences have
an important role to play and a great responsibility in promoting intercultural dialogues that help to
reverse the incapability of modern civilization to a fair understanding among cultures as basis for
Concordia among the diversity of peoples and nations.

The intercultural dialogue is a task to be carried out mainly for Third World hermeneutical scientists
and humanists in order to contribute to cultural and political emancipation. Latin American countries
represent a relevant opportunity for promoting multiculturalist hermeneutics since in the last decades
many of the most important multiculturalists movements, particularly from indigenous people there has
been a hermeneutic shift, mainly in philosophy. Therefore, it is urgent to direct the increasing
hermeneutic studies in Latin America towards epistemological, ethical and political problems of
multiculturalism to overcome the persisting external and internal colonialism. In this task, we may
highlight the “diatopic hermeneutics” recently proposed by the Portuguese humanist Boaventura De
Souza Santos who has adopted a decolonialist hermeneutical situation, in ways similar to those that
Bartolomé de Las Casas or Alonso de la Veracruz adopted in the 16th century against Spanish
imperialism.

Related Chapers

Glossary

Action: intentional conduct to achieve a goal or end. In social actions the connection between conduct and intended goal are
based on intersubjective rules and beliefs shared by members of a particular community.
Actor: Individual or collective agent that performs actions.
Cause: Antecedent fact or event that produces some other fact or even (effect)
Community : a group of persons that share a cultural identity, social rules, and institutions.
Common sense: A complex of beliefs, values, criteria of a given community which are the basis for prudential evaluation
of beliefs and actions (practical reason).
Critique: Rational and evaluative judgment about historical process, social actions or cultural expressions.
Context: Specific situation where actions utterances or cultural expressions takes place and have influence in their meaning.
Contextualism: Philosophical view that considers that context is determinant on the meaning of actions, speeches, and
cultural expressions in general. Contextualism is associated with relativism (relative to a particular context) and opposed to
universalism.

17
Culture: Symbolic construction of human world on which the totality of social life of each particular society is grounded. It
encompasses the public and the private, the economic, political and religious spheres, the everyday life, sciences,
techniques, instruments, arts and humanities. Every culture has two main dimensions: expressions that are empirically
manifest and a underlying complex of common beliefs, values traditions, social rules, ways of interpreting and judging that
are in general called “Objective spirit or mind” (Dilthey), or “symbolic forms” (Cassirer). This underlying dimension
reflects on language and is the source of meaning of cultural expressions.
Empiricism: An epistemic conception on philosophy of science that defend observational language as the basis for
verifying or refuting hypothesis and theories.
Explanation: deductive argument to give account of facts by subsuming them under theoretical laws. Nomological
explanations are very important for natural sciences and for naturalist views of social sciences.
Expressions: Empirical and meaningful manifestations of social life and culture: behaviors, writings, buildings,
instruments, monuments, writings, works of arts, etc. They are the subject matter of humanities and social sciences.
Hermeneutics: A broad scope of studies that aim to understand the meaning social actions, historical process or cultural
expressions. In social sciences hermeneutical approaches consider that their only or main purpose in not to generally explain
facts, but to particularly understand social process and cultural expressions.
Heuristics: Reasoning that search for discover new meanings, facts or causes, rather than testing or confirming hypothesis.
Heuristics is related to the original meaning of truth in ancient Greece as “dis-cover” (Aletheia).
Humanities: Academic disciplines concerned with reflective analysis and critical interpretations of human deeds and
cultural expressions. Among the most important humanities disciplines are: History, philology, philosophy, literary
criticism.
Interpretation: It is the intellectual product of understanding social actions, historical process or cultural expressions.
Language. System of sign codes (paradigmatically words), historically formed for each particular community, that
expresses its culture and constitutes the world in which social life develops. Representation and communication are two of
the most important social roles of languages.
Meaning: Sense of cultural expressions, motives of actions or direction of historical process.
Methodology: Reflective analysis of the ruled process of research (methods) in science and humanities that are useful for
testing hypotheses, theories or interpretations.
Naturalism: In the philosophy of social science refers to the conception that hold natural sciences, mainly physics, are the
epistemic and methodological model for social sciences. Since naturalism only accept one scientific model, is also called
“monism”. In epistemology and philosophy in general, naturalism stresses the uses of scientific knowledge and methods to
empirically ground philosophical theories and interpretations.
Narration: It is a reconstructive argument taken from literary theory to understand series of actions in successive scenarios.
The plot that links successive scenarios as reasonable outcomes of actions and decisions of agents constitutes the h meaning
of each particular action and of the historical process to be interpreted.
Ontology: Refers to deep structures or presuppositions of existence of beings, primordially, human beings.
Pluralism: Philosophical view that values the diversity of cultures, languages, theories, interpretations, etc, since that
diversity promotes intercultural dialogue and reflective learning.
Positivism: Approach in philosophy of science that postulates as the main goal of every factual science, natural or social, to
discover and empirically verify laws in order to explain or predict facts and process. It is opposed to hermeneutical
approaches that aim to understand, no to explain social actions.
Rationality: An action, decision, sentence, belief is rational inasmuch it is grounded in good reasons. Reasons may be
theoretical arguments, or relevant evidence, but also are practical maxims, prudential deliberation, social rules, common
sense.
Social sciences: Academic disciplines –such as Sociology, Anthropology, Political science, History–, that aim to explain or
understand social facts, historical process and cultural expressions through reliable methods that make theories or
interpretations rational and objective.
Scientism: Philosophical view about the epistemic primacy of scientific knowledge. In virtue of this epistemic hierarchy,
sciences mot be the basis of political decisions (Technocracy).
Tradition: A complex of theories, interpretations, values and social practices of a given community that is part of its
historical identity and provides heuristic guides and criteria for prudential actions and decisions. Traditions are in
continuous transformation and progress through internal and external dialogues and controversies.
Understanding: Intellectual process to elucidate the meaning of cultural expressions, social actions and historical events.
To achieve objective interpretations understanding must follow hermeneutical methods.

Bibliography

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Gadamer, H.G. (1998). “Reply to My Critics”, in The Hermeneutic Tradition. From Ast to Ricoeur (ed. G.L. Ormiston and
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Giddens, A. (1976). New Rules of Sociological Method, 192 pp. London: Macmillan. [Methodological hermeneutics,
phenomenology in social sciences. Key concepts: double hermeneutics ]
Habermas, J. (1978). Knowledge and Human Interests, 392 pp. London: Heinemann. [Natural, social and critical sciences]
Habermas, J. (1988). “On Hermeneutics‟ Claim to Universality”, in The Hermeneutics Reader (ed. K. Mueller-Vollmer),
pp. 293-319. New York: Continuum. [Habermas-Gadamer debate, critical hermeneutics, Marxism. Key concepts:
Universalism, critique, ideology, domination, emancipation, tradition]
Habermas, J. (1989). On the Logic of Social Sciences, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [Habermas-Gadamer debate, critical
theory. Key concepts: Language, ideology, critique, tradition, translation, communication]
Hempel, C.G. (1966). Philosophy of Natural Science, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc. [Empiricism, natural
sciences. Key concepts: Nomological explanation, laws, hypothesis, naturalism]
MacIntyre, A. (1967). “The Idea of A Social Science”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 41,
95-114. [Winch-MacIntyre debate. Key concepts: Explanation, understanding, critique, ideology, social sciences,
positivism, rationality]
MacIntyre, A. (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, 410 pp. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
[Hermeneutics and political philosphy. Key concepts: Tradition, translation, rationality, relativism, universalism]
Neurath, O. (1959), “Sociology and Physicalism”, in Logical Positivism (ed. A.J. Ayer), pp. 282-317. New York: Free
Press. [Logical positivism, debate with Weber. Key concepts: Naturalism, positivism, explanation, physicalism,
causes., ideology]
Popper, K.R. (1949). “Towards a Rational Theory of Tradition”, in The Rationalist Annual for the Year 1949 (ed. F. Watts),
pp. 36-55. London: Watts & Co. [Methodological hermeneutics. Key concepts: Tradition rationality, situational
analysis, understanding, interpretation]
Popper, K.R. (1972). “On the Theory of Objective Mind”, in Objective Knowledge, pp. 153-190. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. [Methodological hermeneutics. Key concepts: Tradition rationality, situational analysis, understanding,
interpretation]
Ricoeur, P. (1985). Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, 319 pp. New York: Cambridge University Press.
[Methodological hermeneutics, ontological hermeneutics, social sciences. Key concepts: Explanation, understanding,
narration, history, historicity, ideology, critique]
Schütz, A. (1972). The Phenomenology of the Social World, 255 pp. London: Heinemann. [Phenomenological
hermeneutics]
Von Wright, G.H. (1971). Explanation and Understanding, 230 pp. New York: Cornell University. [Naturalism-
hermeneutics debate. Key concepts: Explanation, understanding, actions, intentions, laws]
Weber, M. (1988). “The Nature of Social Action”, in Weber’s Selections in Translation (ed. W.G. Runciman), pp. 7-32.
New York: Cambridge University Press. [Methodological hermeneutics. Key concepts: Actions, meaning, rules, ideal
types, social sciences, explanation, understanding, interpretation]
Winch, P. (1964). “Understanding a Primitive Society”, American Philosophical Quarterly 1, 307-324. [Winch-MacIntyre
debate. Key concepts: Actions, meaning, rules, rationality, relativism, social sciences]

Biographical Sketch

Ambrosio Velasco Gómez was born in Mexico city in 1954. Bachelor in political Science at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico, 1980.; Master in Arts in Philosophy of Science at
Autonomous Metropolitan University, México, 1986; Master in Science in Political Science, University
of Minnesota, 1989; Ph.D. in history and philosophy of political theory, University of Minnesota ,1991.

He is full professor at the Institute of Philosophical of the National Autonomous University of Mexico
(UNAM), where he was founding chairperson of the Graduate Program of Philosophy of Science
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(1993-2001) and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature (2001-2009). He has been visiting
professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, University of Basque Country, University of
Barcelona, and several universities of Mexico. Books: Tradiciones naturalistas y hermenéuticas en la
filosofía de las ciencias sociales, México, UNAM, 1999; La persistencia del humanismo republicano
en la formación de la nación y el estado en México, México, UNAM, 2009; with Ana Rosa Pérez
Ransanz, (editors), Racionalidad en ciencia y tecnología. Nuevas perspectivas latinoamericanas,
México UNAM, 2011, among others. Main research fields: Philosophy of social sciences ( hermenutics
and heuristics), political philosophy (multiculturalism and republicanism) and history of Mexican
philosophy.

Dr. Velasco is member of Mexican Academy of Science, Mexican Philosophical Association;

Iberoamerican Association of Political Philosophy, Iberoamerican Association of Philosophy of
Science, Philosophical Hispanism Association, Mexican Classical Studies Association, and editor of
the philosophical Review, Theoria,

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