Circles of Scientific Practice: Regressus, Mathēsis, Denkstil

In Dimitri Ginev (ed.), Critical Science Studies after Ludwik Fleck. St. Kliment Ohridski University Press. pp. 83-99 (2015)
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Abstract

Hermeneutic studies of science locate a circle at the heart of scientific practice: scientists only gain knowledge of what they, in some sense, already know. This may seem to threaten the rational validity of science, but one can argue that this circle is a virtuous rather than a vicious one. A virtuous circle is one in which research conclusions are already present in the premises, but only in an indeterminate and underdeveloped way. In order to defend the validity of science, the hermeneuticist must describe a method by which a vague and confused initial knowledge of nature gets transformed into a clear and determinate knowledge of nature. I consider three such methods. The first is regressus demonstrativa, favoured by the physicians of Padua during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The second is mathēsis, introduced by Martin Heidegger in his discussion of seventeenth-century science. The third is Denkstil, a key concept in Ludwik Fleck’s history of syphilology. I conclude by listing three desiderata for a hermeneutic science studies: that it be anti-metaphysical, historical, and sociological. --- Reprinted in: Erich Otto Graf, Martin Schmid & Johannes Fehr (eds.), Fleck and the Hermeneutics of Science (Collegium Helveticum Heft 14) (Zürich, 2016), pp. 85-93.

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Jeff Kochan
Universität Konstanz

Citations of this work

Ingold, Hermeneutics, and Hylomorphic Animism.Jeff Kochan - 2024 - Anthropological Theory 24 (1):88-108.
Putting a Spin on Circulating Reference, or How to Rediscover the Scientific Subject.Jeff Kochan - 2015 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 49:103-107.

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References found in this work

Genesis and development of a scientific fact.Ludwik Fleck - 1979 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by T. J. Trenn & R. K. Merton.
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology.M. Heidegger - 1982 - In Trans Albert Hofstadter (ed.).
What is a thing?Martin Heidegger - 1967 - Lanham [Md.]: University Press of America. Edited by Eugene T. Gendlin.
Galileo and Plato.Alexandre Koyre - 1994 - Neusis 1 (1/4):51-83.

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