Truth and Method<\/em>, 2d ed., rev., translation by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), 4.\u00a0 I used that passage as a jumping-off point for a point of my own; I wasn\u2019t attempting an exposition of Gadamerian aesthetics or of Gadamer\u2019s overall position on the human sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
My point was, simply, that disciplines such as history can and do furnish genuine knowledge, even if they neither yield nor flow from universal laws like those of the physical sciences.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all.\u00a0 The point seems to me so obvious as to be undeniable.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
So I was surprised, just now, to see a very lengthy and quite ponderous series of comments elsewhere that seem to have been intended to demonstrate that my reading of Gadamer \u2014 a reading that, so far as I can tell, I\u2019ve never offered here or anywhere else \u2014 is superficial and false.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I skimmed through them pretty rapidly, but it appears that one of my alleged problems is my supposed failure to grasp the distinction between the English word science<\/em> and the German term Wissenschaft<\/em>.\u00a0 However, I\u2019ve known the difference between those two words for, literally, most of my life.\u00a0 Here, for instance, is something (by no means complete or exhaustive) that I posted regarding the topic back in August 2019, on this very blog:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Our English word science<\/em> derives, ultimately, from the Latin verb scire<\/em>, which meant \u201cto know.\u201d \u00a0In modern English, though, science<\/em> doesn\u2019t refer simply to knowledge in general. \u00a0Rather, it denotes a certain kind<\/em> of knowledge \u2014 or, even, to be really precise, a certain methodology (or bundle of methodologies; after all, cosmology and botany and geology and particle physics and genetics and astrophysics and ecology employ quite distinct methods and styles of reasoning) for attaining<\/em> that particular kind of knowledge.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Very few if any people in the English-speaking world, for instance, would describe art history as a \u201cscience.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is history, more generally, a \u201cscience\u201d? \u00a0Some historians have aspired to that status \u2014 Leopold von Ranke\u2019s famous goal of recording or writing history wie es eigentlich gewesen<\/em> (\u201cas it actually was\u201d) surely expresses some such ambition \u2014 but most today probably don\u2019t. \u00a0And, while history can be ranked among the \u201csocial sciences\u201d (as at BYU), it\u2019s often placed within colleges of \u201cArts and Letters\u201d). \u00a0And it\u2019s arguably at least as close to literature as it is to nuclear physics.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Is \u201cpolitical science\u201d really a \u201cscience\u201d? \u00a0As practiced by some (e.g., by those who work with survey data), it may tend in a genuinely \u201cscientific\u201d direction. \u00a0But more than a few \u201cpolitical scientists\u201d are either uncomfortable with or irritated by the notion that they\u2019re doing \u201cscience.\u201d \u00a0Courses on political philosophy, for instance, don\u2019t seem \u201cscientific\u201d at all \u2014 though that act doesn\u2019t even begin<\/em> to render without value the study of Plato\u2019s Republic<\/em> and Laws<\/em>, Aristotle\u2019s Politics<\/em>, or the work of John Rawls.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are valuable areas of scholarship, study, thought, and knowledge that have nothing to do with \u201cscience\u201d as it is generally conceived in English.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In German, though, the word Wissenschaft<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 which is often translated into English simply as science\u00a0<\/em>and which, analogously to science<\/em>, derives from the German verb wissen<\/em> (\u201cto know\u201d)\u00a0\u2014 is quite a different matter. \u00a0For example, although it is properly applied to such disciplines as chemistry and biology and physics, there is also, actually, a German term Kunstwissenschaft<\/em> (literally \u201cart science\u201d or, perhaps better, \u201cscience of art\u201d) that is often used as a synonym for Kunstgeschichte<\/em> (\u201cart history\u201d) but that can likewise refer to \u201caesthetics\u201d or to the study of aesthetics and aesthetic judgment.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
On that German term Wissenschaft<\/em>, there may well be some additional notes to come.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Back on 8 September 2020, I posted a brief blog entry (\u201cCan the study of history yield genuine knowledge?\u201d) in which, even more briefly, I cited a passage from\u00a0Hans-Georg Gadamer,\u00a0Truth and Method, 2d ed., rev., translation by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), 4.\u00a0 I used that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16128,243,117,17224],"class_list":["post-88433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gadamer","tag-science","tag-scientism","tag-wissenschaft"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>