Universalizing hermeneutics as hermeneutic realism

Abstract

This article explores and attempts to resolve some issues that arise when at stake is the incommensurability between the concepts of reality developed by philosophical hermeneutics, on the one hand, and realist branches of analytical philosophy, on the other. The view of hermeneutic realism is suggested not as a remedy against this incommensurability, but as a vehicle for revising those aspects of both hermeneutics and ontological realism which impede the dialogue between them. It is a view that opposes epistemological foundationalism, Cartesian dualism, essentialism about theoretical objects, and cognitive relativism. The role of reading/textualizing in science’s spaces of representation is specified.