Abstract
Eger's contribution towards a reapprochment of Hermeneutics, Science and Science Education is very welcome. His focus on the problem of misconceptions is relevant. All the same in our opinion some not minor points need a clarification. We will try to argue that: a) Hermeneutics cannot be reduced to a semantical interpretation of science texts; its phenomenological aspects have to be taken in account. b) Science has an unavoidable historical dimension; original papers and advanced textbooks are the real depositaries of scientific research. Standard textbooks are a caricature not worth it of a hermeneutical analysis. c) A parallelism can be traced between two dicothomies: the lifeworld of hermeneutics and the scienceworld of epistemology on one side and the extraordinary and the normal science on the other. d) For an overcoming of the misconceptions' problem we propose that the previous dicothomies be bridged through a hermeneutical phenomenological approach to science education that stresses the alternative, historical interpretations of natural phenomena.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Apel, K.O.: 1973, 1976, Transformation der Philosophie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
Apel, K.O.: (in press), History of Science as a Problem of Hermeneutics. An Argument with Karl Popper's “Third-World”-Hermeneutics, Proceedings of the “Conference on Science and Hermeneutics” (Veszprém 1993), O. Kiss & L. Ropolyi (eds.), Reidel, Dordrecht.
Blumenberg, H.: 1960, Paradigmen zu einer Metaphorologie, Bonn.
Blumenberg, H.: 1981, Die Lesbarkeit der Welt, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main.
Boyd, R.: 1979, ‘Metaphor and Theory Change: What is “Metaphor” and Metaphor for?’, in Metaphor and Thought, A. Ortony (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Buchdahl, G.: 1992, Kant and the Dynamics of Reason, Blackwell, Oxford.
Buchdahl, G.: 1993, Science & Education 2, 149–167.
Eger, M.: 1993, Science & Education 1, 337–348; 1993, Science & Education 2, 1–29 and 303–328.
Gadamer, H.G.: 1960, 1965, Wahrheit und Methode, Mohr, Tübingen.
Giannetto, E.: (in press), Heidegger and the Question of Physics, Proceedings of the “Conference on Science and Hermeneutics” (Veszprém 1993), O. Kiss & L. Ropolyi (eds), Reidel, Dordrecht.
Giannetto, E., Tarsitani, C. & Vicentini, M.: 1992, ‘The Relations between Epistemology, History of Science and Science Teaching from the Point of View of the Research on Mental Representations’, in The History and Philosophy of Science in Science Education, S. Hill (ed.), University of Kingston, Kingston, 359–374.
Heidegger, M.: 1927, Sein und Zeit, Niemeyer, Tübingen.
Heidegger, M.: 1954, ‘Die Frage nach der Technik’, in Vorträge und Aufsätze, Neske, Pfullingen.
Heidegger, M.: 1959, Unterwegs zur Sprache, Neske, Pfullingen.
Husserl, E.: 1954, 1959, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, in Husserliana, Gesammelte Werke 6, Nijhoff, The Hague.
Kuhn, T.S.: 1979, ‘Metaphor in Science’, in Metaphor and Thought, A. Ortony (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Matthews, M.: 1994, History, Philosophy and Science Teaching: A Useful Alliance, Routledge, New York.
Olby, R.C., Cantor, G.N., Christie, J.R.R. & Hodge M.J.S. (eds.): 1990, Companion to the History of Modern Science, Routledge, London.
Poincaré, H.: 1902, La science et l'hypothèse, Flammarion, Paris.
Poincaré, H.: 1905, La valeur de la science, Flammarion, Paris.
Rorty, R. (ed.): 1967, The Linguistic Turn, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Rorty, R.: 1991, ‘Is Natural Science a Natural Kind?’, in Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Philosophical Papers I, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 46–62.
Rorty, R.: 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Russell, B.: 1914, Our Knowledge of the External World, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Secord, J.A. (guest ed.): 1993, The Big Picture, a special issue of the British Journal for the History of Science 26(91).
Whitehead, A.N.: 1920, The Concept of Nature, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Wittgenstein, L.: 1922, Logisch-philosophische Abhandlung. Tractatus logico-philosophicus, with an introduction by B. Russell, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., London.
Wittgenstein, L.: 1953, Philosophische Untersuchungen. (Philosophical Investigations), Blackwell, Oxford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bevilacqua, F., Giannetto, E. Hermeneutics and Science Education: The role of history of science. Sci Educ 4, 115–126 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00486579
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00486579