Search

I would like to introduce the notion of machine hermeneutics in this paper. The notion refers to hermeneutical activity performed by machines. Machines are now capable of making the very interpretive tasks, using artificial intelligence algorithms based on the technology of machine learning that used to be the exclusive domain of human beings. In making this claim, I am not talking about possible conscious machines of the future, but those existing here and now. With facial recognition algorithms, for example, machines are now performing routinely what must be regarded as hermeneutical analyses with astounding accuracy and power. Thus, machine hermeneutics supplements Don Ihde's notion of material hermeneutics. In the latter, it is still human beings who do the interpretation, through the lenses provided the natural sciences; in this case, the natural sciences, or the technology afforded by the sciences, intervene between the human being and the world. In machine hermeneutics, on the contrary, the intervening comes in two layers. On the one hand, there is the usual intervention that Ihde talks about, but on the other, the artificial intelligence algorithm performs its own kind of intervention and interpretation, presenting an already interpreted result to the human beings, who then perceive it through the aid of the usual intervention such as the normal eyeglasses. Then the paper discusses the problem of how to justify the kind of perception that undergoes this process. In what sense can it be said that the algorithm is performing the right action, i.e., one such that the process comes up with a right picture of the world? I contend that this does not merely consist of technical excellence for the technology involved, but also ethical excellence. The two cannot be considered one apart from the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a hermeneutic technology assessment of quantum technologies. It offers a “vision assessment” of quantum technologies that can eventually lead to socio-ethical analysis. Section 2 describes this methodological approach and in particular the concept of the hermeneutic circle applied to technology. Section 3 gives a generic overview of quantum technologies and their impacts. Sections 4 and 5 apply the hermeneutic technology assessment approach to the study of quantum technologies. Section 5 proposes distinguishing three levels in the analysis of the creation and communication of social meanings to quantum technologies: (a) fictions, (b) popularization, and (c) scientific journalism. Section 6 analyzes the results and defines some lines of action to increase social acceptance and trust in quantum technologies. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on quantum technologies by enhancing the reflection on them and their potential, as well as illustrating the complexity of technological innovation and the need to shape it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating digital technologies to benefit teaching and learning has long been driving higher education. The uptake of technology has been supported by teacher training focused on developing teachers' capabilities to design for learning. However, in this paper, we raise the point of moving towards teaching-sensitive technology as a clear alternative to current strategies focusing on teachers' mental processes. To develop this point, the paper offers a qualitative study that explores teaching to identify critical features of technology supporting teachers' work. Analysing teaching from a hermeneutic perspective, we arrive at six fundamental dynamics within which teachers operate. Based on the factors identified, we present three principles to guide future design of technologies for teaching and two approaches to designing technology sensitive to teachers' values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the opposite of judgement and calculation. This opposition has been a traditional anchor of critiques concerned with the rise of AI decision making over human judgement. Contrary to these approaches, it is argued that human judgement is not and cannot be replaced by calculation, but that it is human judgement that contextualises computational structures and gives them meaning and purpose. The article focuses on the epistemic structure of algorithms and artificial neural networks to find that they always depend on human judgement to be related to real life objects or purposes. By introducing the philosophical concept of judgement, it becomes clear that the property of judgement to provide meaning and purposiveness is based on the temporality of human life and the ambiguity of language, which quantitative processes lack. A juxtaposition shows that calculations and clustering can be used and referred to in more or less prejudiced and reflecting as well as opaque and transparent ways, but thereby always depend on human judgement. The paper clearly asserts that the transparency of AI is necessary for their autonomous use. This transparency requires the explicitness of the judgements that constitute these computational structures, thereby creating an awareness of the conditionality of such epistemic entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses a version of the hermeneutic philosophy of science. Special focus is placed on the ways of reading theoretical objects in scientific inquiry. In implementing readable technologies, this reading succeeds in contextually visualizing the theoretical objects by means of various sorts of signs. A configuration of readable technology accomplishes a further step. The configuration textualizes the contextually produced signs. Textualizing the reading of theoretical objects interlaces the meaningful articulation and objectification of scientific domains. The horizon of possibilities for textualizing is constantly shifting in the process of normal-scientific inquiry, and the shifting horizon plays the role of a hermeneutic fore-structuring of the outcomes of textualizing. The paper explores the importance of "material hermeneutics" for the contextual reading of theoretical objects. The conclusion is drawn that the hermeneutic study of the entanglement of technological artifacts with the outcomes from reading-as-textualizing requires the introduction of ontic-ontological difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn 'Arabī (d. 638/1240) is regarded as one of the foremost mystical thinkers in Islam. This paper explores the ways in which he and his followers distinguish between the reality of Muḥammad (al-ḥaqīqa al-Muḥammadiyya) or the light of Muḥammad (al-nūr al-Muḥammadī), as the metaphysical reality of Muḥammad, and his metahistorical manifestation as Muḥammad Ibn 'Abd Allāh. In his metaphysical reality, Muḥammad is the manifestation of the qur'ān, which 'brings together' the divine and His creation. Muḥammad's metaphysical reality, as the primary recipient of the divine outpouring, enables further differentiations of the divine to emerge in the form of the universe, and establishes his connection to the divine. Yet the Qur'an is also temporal in terms of being an historical act of revelation. Likewise, Muḥammad Ibn 'Abd Allāh, in terms of his physical reality, was temporally circumscribed. It is in these ways, argues Ibn 'Arabī and his acolytes, that Muḥammad, as reality and personality, brings together the divine and the temporal, in the same manner as the qur'ān/Qur'an respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central thesis of this paper is that human unconscious processes influence the behavior and design of artificial intelligence (AI). This thesis is discussed through the case study of a chatbot called Replika, which intends to provide psychological assistance and friendship but has been accused of inciting murder and suicide. Replika originated from a trauma and a work of mourning lived by its creator. The traces of these unconscious dynamics can be detected in the design of the app and the narratives about it. Therefore, a process of de-psychologization and de-humanization of the unconscious takes place through AI. This psychosocial approach helps criticize and overcome the so-called "standard model of intelligence" shared by most AI researchers. It facilitates a new interpretation of some classic problems in AI, such as control and responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides an overview of hermeneutics in relation to technology and culture. It highlights the importance of clear language when discussing the cultural and political aspects of technology. The document explores the work of philosophers Don Ihde, Patrick Heelan, Rudolf Makkreel, and Martin Heidegger, who have applied hermeneutics to various fields such as the natural sciences and multiculturalism. It also discusses the concept of material hermeneutics, which involves the interpretation of technology and its impact on perception. The document includes contributions from multiple authors that delve into the application of hermeneutics in different contexts, such as smart medical technologies and digital technologies. These essays offer valuable insights into the complex relationship between humans and technology, exploring topics such as the interpretation of data, the ethical dimensions of technology, and the cultural implications of scientific knowledge. [Extracted from the article]

Currently, we find ourselves in a paradigm in which we believe that accepting climate change data will lead to a kind of automatic action toward the preservation of our environment. I have argued elsewhere (Fried 2020) that this lack of civic action on climate data is significant when placed in the historical, military context of the technologies that collect this data––Earth remote sensing technologies. However, I have not yet discussed the phenomenological or moral implications of this context, which are deeply interconnected. In this paper, I assert that Earth remote sensing technologies can, if we are not careful, lead us to a kind of environmental deskilling. This assertion comes in four parts. First, the military context of Earth remote sensing technologies––which collect important data on climate change––acts as a kind of stability, as defined by Don Ihde and others. Second, I invoke Sir Patrick Heelan to argue that the theoretical underpinnings of Earth systems science do not translate from military to environmental praxes as we imagine they do. Third, Hannah Arendt makes the case that a state's trust in simplifying narratives like that of climate data, meant to create "islands" of certainty in an uncertain world, can be self-defeating. That is to say, they can silence public action. I extend these arguments through Vallor's analysis of moral deskilling, in which she points out that an overemphasis on autonomous data collection––and trust in a kind of automated decision-making on that data––can deskill us from important questions relevant to our collective flourishing. In all of these examples, the lines between environmental and military research are blurry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I first analyze the extension of hermeneutical interpretation in the Heideggerian sense to products of contemporary technology which are components of our "lifeworld". Products of technology, such as airplanes, laptops, cellular phones, washing machines, or vacuum cleaners might be compared with what Heidegger calls the "Ready-to-hand" (das Zuhandene) with regard to utilitarian objects such as a hammer, planer, needle and door handle in Being and Time. Our life with our equipment, which represents the "Ready-to-hand" in Heidegger's sense of the word, is determined by temporalization (Zeitigung) which cannot be separated and isolated from the wholeness of things in the world. In the second part of my paper, I explore the positive achievement of material hermeneutics (Don Ihde) with regard to its extension to technoscience and the discussion of how such hermeneutics can contribute to the preservation of our threatened lifeworld, but also to explore the possibilities of how technical inventions, medical innovations could improve our way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research that employs theory provides a framework and structure in which complex phenomenon, can be understood. While many theories have been developed to study people's technology usage, the plurality of perspectives offered are complex to navigate due to the diverse range of problems and topics addressed and the varied theoretical foundations used. Moreover, when focusing on the integration of technology within educational contexts, studies conducted by researchers with a technology focus mainly explore how and why using technology benefits education. On the contrary, studies driven by educational researchers do not necessarily advocate for technology integration but rather aim to explore the educational issues surrounding the use of technology. While triangulating theories can expand knowledge, selecting the most appropriate and suitable theory is often confusing and overwhelming. This paper is aimed at assisting and guiding researchers with this problem. A hermeneutic approach was followed to review the different theories and models commonly used to study technology acceptance/adoption/use within education, whilst catering for methodological diversity and cross-disciplinary dialogue. The dimensions of aims and purpose, strategy, paradigm, and perspective and value of technology were used to categorise the different theories, with four categories emerging. The review indicates that for researchers with a positivist paradigm, technocentric view, and who aim to predict or prescribe technology use in a normative manner, the categories of technology acceptance/adoption/use theories and education and technology models are most suitable. However, for researchers with an interpretivist paradigm who view technology as an enabler and aim to explain social dynamics of technology adoption in a descriptive manner, the categories of social theories and structuration theories are most appropriate. In addition, the categorisation of theories and the detailed account of the hermeneutic review method can be used to guide future researchers wanting to pursue similar studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How are contemporary researchers "present" in investigating the past, and how do they conduct research that acknowledges the reconstruction of the past without reducing it to what they already wanted to find? These perennial questions have become central to literature at the intersection of historical hermeneutics and sociological methodology. This paper provides a novel perspective on these questions by interrogating the notion of "anachronism" with the help of queer historiography and pragmatism. Queer historiographers make a case for how the present is experienced as multiple temporalities, how the sense of anachronism is dependent on dynamics of bodily identification with historical others, and how this sense may become a provocative hermeneutic strategy rather than a topic to be avoided. Pragmatists show how anachronism emerges as the socially-situated and embodied sense of surprise in encountering particular traces of the past in the actor's present, and how this surprise may prompt analyses into the past that utilize the researcher's value-commitments as a resource in sociological inquiry. The paper seeks to build conceptual tools for a pragmatic hermeneutics that can strengthen both the accuracy of our investigations into particular historical events and our democratically-inclusive ethical and political projects to reconstruct usable histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the hermeneutic processes involved in translating instances of imagery in Arabic poetry into English across a period ranging between 1789 and 1993. It examines ten translations of two verse lines from Labīd's Mu'allaqa. The paper does not aim to determine whether a given translation is correct—its purpose is, rather, to use translational hermeneutics as a key analytical tool to identify which translation products may be considered acceptable within the scope of this theory. Translational hermeneutics conceives of translation as re-formulation and, hence, re-creation. The notion of identity is minimised, in translational hermeneutics as well as in this study, by investigating how a source text's aesthetic message can assume a different form when translated. The assessment of different translations in this paper's case study demonstrates that translating responsibly is, first and foremost, translating responsively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both designers and users of social robots tend to anthropomorphize robots. Focusing on the question how to conceptualize the relation between robots and humans, this paper first outlines two opposite philosophical views regarding this relation, which are connected to various normative responses to anthropomorphism and anthropomorphization. Then it argues for a third view: navigating between what it calls "naïve instrumentalism" and "uncritical posthumanism", it develops a hermeneutic, relational, and critical approach. Paradoxically, by unpacking the human dimension of robotics in its use and development, this view enables a critical discussion of anthropomorphizing robots. At the same time, and again somewhat paradoxically, it avoids a naïve instrumentalist position by taking robots' role as an instrument in a larger con-technology seriously. As such, the third view questions the dualism assumed in the debate. The paper then explores what this means for the field of social robotics and the education of computer scientists and engineers. It proposes a reform based on a relational understanding of the field itself and offers suggestions for the role of users-citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Patient-centred care" is the recent response to the malaise produced in the field of health care from the point of view both of a technical mentality and the paternalistic model. The interest in the story-telling approach shown by both the humanities and the social sciences has favoured a "narrative turn" in medicine too, where the new ethics of therapeutic relationship consider the hermeneutic method a means by which to integrate evidence and subjectivity, scientific data and patient experience. The aim of this paper is to show how Ricoeur's theory of "threefold mimesis" makes a conceptual contribution to the use of narrative interviews in nursing and also be successfully transferred into and applied in the field of healthcare in general. First, the paper examines how this narrative approach might open up new possibilities for the acquisition of in-depth knowledge of patients' life experiences, a condition indispensable for the improvement of the quality of care. Secondly, it highlights how this Ricoeurian method seems capable of provide an opportunity for healthcare professionals to review their own understanding of the caregiver-patient therapeutic relationship, beginning with their confrontation with the patient's world as revealed by the narrative they provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous weather forecasting (IWF) is practised by various communities around the world. Access to meteorological weather forecasting is limited in eastern Africa's pastoral regions. As a result, pastoralists frequently rely on indigenous weather forecasting indicators. This paper investigates the use of IWF in drought forecasting among Gujii pastoralists in southern Ethiopia. To collect data, household surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews were used. Furthermore, meteorological data were used to determine the frequency of drought events in the area. A comparison was made between IWF and data from the Ethiopian National Metrological Service Agency to ensure consistency of the results of IWF and climatic data. For quantitative data analysis, descriptive statistics was used, while hermeneutic and narrative analyses were used for qualitative data analysis. Pastoralists have used a variety of weather forecasting indicators, such as reading livestock intestines, observing animal and insect behaviours, and interpreting the star and moon alignment. Both the indigenous drought event forecasting result and the drought history result from the meteorological agency indicate the presence of drought in the area. However, several internal and external factors are contributing to IWF's gradual decline. Religious teachings, technology, and education were identified as external factors, while the growing generation gap was identified as an internal factor. Thus, to increase the accuracy of forecasting of weather events and improve pastoralist's prediction capacity, the integration of this knowledge is highly appreciated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers Gianni Vattimo's rejection of metaphysical conceptions of being in favor of a hermeneutic ontology developed along the lines of 'weak thought.' I argue that Vattimo's critique neglects an abiding pluralism within the very history of metaphysical thought itself; at least some metaphysical conceptions of being in that history do not fall prey to his critique. To establish my claim I turn to Thomas Aquinas, whose metaphysics is couched within a larger theological context and presents itself dynamically, thereby expressing some of the very features that Vattimo himself accords to Being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The clinical encounter begins with presentation of an illness experience; but throughout that encounter, something else is constructed from it – a symptom. The symptom is a particular interpretation of that experience, useful for certain purposes in particular contexts. The hermeneutics of medicine – the study of the interpretation of human experience in medical terms – has largely taken the process of symptom-construction to be transparent, focussing instead on how constellations of symptoms are interpreted as representative of particular conditions. This paper examines the hermeneutical activity of symptom-construction more closely. I propose a fourfold account of the clinical function of symptoms: as theoretical entities; as tools for communication; as guides to palliative intervention; and as candidates for medical explanation or intervention. I also highlight roles they might play in illness experience. I use this framework to discuss four potential failures of symptom-interpretation: failure of symptom-type and symptom-token recognition; loss of the complete picture of illness experience through overwhelming emphasis on its symptomatic interpretation; and intersubjective feedback effects of symptom description altering the ill person's own perceptions of their phenomenal experience. I conclude with some suggestions of potential remedies for failures in the process of symptom-construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent philosophical literature on epistemic harms has paid little attention to the difference between deliberate and non-deliberate harms. In this paper, I analyze the "Curare Case," a case from the 1940's in which patient testimony was disregarded by physicians. This case has been described as an instance of epistemic injustice. I problematize this description, arguing instead that the case shows an instance of "epistemic disadvantage." I propose epistemic disadvantage indicates when harms result from warranted asymmetric relations that justifiably exclude individuals from hermeneutical participation. Epistemic disadvantage categorizes harms that result from justifiable exclusions, are non-deliberate, and result from poor epistemic environments. This analysis brings out a meaningful difference between accidental and deliberate harms in communicative exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Written for Dorothy Pawluch's festschrift for The American Sociologist, this paper seeks to advance constructionist conceptualization and theorizing of time. Our goal is to contribute to expanding the social constructionist toolkit by considering the role of temporality in social problems claims-making, i.e., temporal hermeneutics or time as a vernacular resource. We background this focus with a brief overview of sociological examinations of time, with a particular focus on the writings of George Herbert Mead, who developed key concepts that point to an underdeveloped sociology of time. We argue that 'hewing' to members own projections and invocations of time helps analysts to remain agnostic regarding the examination of definitional processes. Two case studies indicate potential directions forward. First is the case of the 'tank man' image/meme, originating from news coverage of the June 4, 1989 Chinese government crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Tiananmen Square. Second, we explore the case of 'missing time' experienced by those claiming to have encountered aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs). These very different cases suggest the wide range of applications a hermeneutics of temporality may offer to constructionist scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent enactive accounts of cognition have begun to disentangle social and normative aspects of the human mind. In this paper, we will contribute to this debate by developing an enactive account of moral development, i.e. the learning of ethical norms, and critical engagement with these norms through social affordances, participatory sense-making, and moral concern. The difficulty in articulating such an account is in reconciling the affective embodied aspects of moral experiences with the more orthodox aspects of ethics like critical reflection. In order to respond to this difficulty, we bring Ricoeur's hermeneutics into dialogue with enactivism. Complementing the enactive tradition, we frame critical ethical learning as embodied interaction with diverse ethical dimensions allowing us to incorporate moral values in the form of critical narratives and the social imaginary. We agree with enactivist theories that participation and democratic dialogue are essential parts of critical reflection on ethical norms. Yet, we also contend that this kind of critical reflection benefits from hermeneutical interpretation, challenging larger participatory networks, such as social institutions, which nourish inequality and maintain unethical values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst the Arendtian scholars, there is almost a consensus on Arendt's supposedly reluctance to the question of the body. The Arendtian body is said to belong to the unpolitical realm of necessity, in other words, the body is a private matter that should not appear in public. It is antipolitical. However, in this paper, I want to suggest that there is a possibility to outline a phenomenology of embodied political action in what I think to be Arendt's hidden phenomenology of the body. To make my point, I will first show that what the scholars call the Arendtian body is in fact an Arendtian Body. Secondly, in the German version of The Human Condition, Arendt surprisingly used the Heideggerian term Befindlichkeit (disposition) that, I will argue, outline the basis of a political phenomenology of the body in Arendt's work. More precisely, I will try to show that political action is embodied, that there is a hexis, a pathos and an ethos of action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study of student peer mentorship in the context of nursing education in a higher education program in Canada. The study used an embodied hermeneutic phenomenological methodology to investigate student peer mentors' perceptions of teaching during peer mentorship. The data were collected over one calendar year (2019) and involved analysis of 10 participants' interview data and their 'body maps,' produced in response to guided questions. Through the data analysis a core theme of 'commitment to mentee growth' was identified, along with seven interrelated themes: sharing responsibility for learning, moderating stress, mediating power relations, navigating unknown processes, valuing creative approaches, offering generous acceptance, and facilitating confidence. Student peer mentorship has the potential to contribute to health professions education in a number of unique ways including through embodied attunement, trusting intersubjective relations, and dialogic education. This study is innovative in its purposeful design and aim to investigate both cognitive and embodied perceptions of student peer mentors. The findings point to the promise of student peer mentorship for advancing health sciences education. Implications for peer mentorship program development in health professions education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lady Lovelace's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine (1843) never refer to the concept of surprise. Having some pretension to 'originate' something—unlike the Analytical Engine—is neither necessary nor sufficient to being able to surprise someone. Turing nevertheless translates Lovelace's 'this machine is incapable of originating something' in terms of a hypothetical 'computers cannot take us by surprise' objection to the idea that machines may be deemed capable of thinking. To understand the contemporary significance of what is missed in Turing's 'surprise' translation of Lovelace's insight, one needs to distinguish between trivial surprises (which stem from our limited ability to store data and process it) and those events, propositions or encounters that lead us to question our understanding of ourselves or what surrounds us. Only some of these non-trivial surprises are the product of originality endeavours. Not only is it uncommon for surprises to track such endeavours, the type of autonomy that would be required on the part of 'digital computers' for originality and surprise to intersect in that way goes far beyond the operational autonomy that can be achieved by 'learning machines'. This paper argues that a salient translation of Lovelace's originality insight—for contemporary and future 'learning machines'—is an upside-down version of Turing's surprise question: can computers be surprised by us in a non-trivial, 'co-produced' way? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a study of the International Space Station (ISS), this paper argues that – as a set of orientations for sociological inquiry – pragmatism and hermeneutics are confluent frameworks to examine valuation as a social process. This confluence is grounded on their common attunement to valuing as a problematic and relational process, their equally common updates with theories of institutions, and a further conceptual development regarding the temporalities of valuation. I advance the argument in four steps. First, looking at how the question about the "scientific value" of the ISS is far from settled, I show how valuation is always about something considered problematic and indeterminate. Second, characterizing the ISS at the intersection of different criteria of assessment, I stress the nature of valuation as a fundamentally perspectival and interpretive process, and show how a hermeneutic approach can complement some of the limitations of pragmatism in this regard. Third, I look at the question of institutions considering how some modes of assessment sediment more successfully than others. Fourth, I argue that, while providing insights towards it, pragmatist and hermeneutic approaches to valuation have not fully grasped its temporal nature as a process, and outline ways to open this line of inquiry. I conclude with some ideas for studies in sociology of science to re-entangle detailed case studies of scientific practice with the study of how institutions make claims of worth about the nature of science, I propose ways to extend these arguments to other studies of what I call iridescent institutions, and I make some considerations about our stance as sociologists in these valuation disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to point the way towards a new articulation between hermeneutics and pragmatism. The founders of pragmatism in large part ignored the hermeneutic tradition, while the founders of hermeneutics focused above all on the scholarly pursuit of textual interpretation. The textual paradigm is undeniably important; it enables us to understand, analogically, the way in which action appears to us as "meaningful" and "fixed" (Ricœur, Geertz, Alexander), but it is not sufficient for analyzing our ordinary activities in their situational context. Pragmatism reorients hermeneutics towards a stronger focus on problematic situations that call for interpretive effort. Pragmatism and hermeneutics together make it possible to rethink social theory by identifying different ways of understanding sociosigns from spontaneous understanding to the most reflective forms of understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of evolution to understand living phenomena, evolution teaching confronts several tensions, especially with respect to teachers' and students' religious beliefs. These aspects have been widely investigated in the USA and Europe. However, little empirical research has been done on this issue in Latin America, despite their large religious diversity and the currently growing population of Evangelical Christians. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring Colombian biology teachers' ideas about the relationship between scientific views and religious ideas, and their evolution teaching practice. We carried out a qualitative multiple case study involving four biology teachers. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, classroom recordings and discussion group. To analyse teachers' discourses, we used a hermeneutic-phenomenological method. The results show that (a) there is a close relationship between the views about the science-religion relationships and evolution teaching practices; (b) the religious teachers did not fully assume the worldviews of their specific religions, but rather built a personal version of those worldviews; (c) the nature of each religious tradition was a key element for understanding how the teachers see the relationships between religious and scientific views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociological study of political culture has made important headways. Scholars have demonstrated the significance of background culture, symbols and narratives as well as of the shared patterns of conduct. Yet, the relationship of those to ordinary people, how they become meaningful, has not been effectively explored. This paper argues that to comprehend this relationship we must understand political languages as concerning questions of being. I will show how the philosophical resources of Mead's pragmatism and Taylor's hermeneutics can enlighten the link between political languages and self, demonstrate its significance, and suggest ways in which the study of political cultures can be extended to integrate meaningful selfhood. Comparing and complementing pragmatism and hermeneutics, I will argue that political languages become meaningful along two intertwined dimensions: First, practical self-insertion in coordinative patterns, which involves the expression of concerns and senses of being. Second, self- and world clarification. Here, political languages become important when they articulate concerns and intuitions and bring moral sources into proximity. Moreover, by foregrounding Taylor's hermeneutics of self-expression and articulation, which is yet to be integrated in the social sciences, I will show how both dimensions are connected in an hermeneutical cycle and thus ought to be analysed in their relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we address the case of self-tracking as a practice in which two meaningful backgrounds (physical world and technological infrastructure) play an important role as the spatial dimension of human practices. Using a (post)phenomenological approach, we show how quantification multiplies backgrounds, while at the same time generating data about the user. As a result, we can no longer speak of a unified background of human activity, but of multiple dimensions of this background, which, additionally, is perceived as having no pivotal role in the process, often being hidden, situated beyond human consciousness, or taken for granted. Consequently, the phenomenological experience of the background turns into a hermeneutic practice focused on the interpretation of representations and descriptions. By adopting a (post)phenomenological approach, we show the problems and limitations of quantification of human activities occurring in self-tracking and the theoretical problems associated with the scheme of human-technology relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the connection between hermeneutics, quantum mechanics, and the philosophy of science. It focuses on the research of Patrick Heelan and Don Ihde, who have explored how interpretation and technology play a role in scientific discoveries. The article also introduces the concept of "pluriculture" coined by Ihde, which refers to a global form of multiculturalism influenced by technological artifacts. The main point of the article is to emphasize the significance of hermeneutics in comprehending and interpreting the world through the lens of science and technology. [Extracted from the article]

Postphenomenology is not a critique of phenomenology, but a practical interpretive epistemology where technological artifacts and practices are studied. These new researchers can be called 'R&D postphenomenologists'. Over the past 25 years, the expanding hermeneutics of postphenomenology has been undertaken by classical phenomenologists, cultural anthropologists, media/communications writers and performance artists. But these face Scharff's challenge of 'insufficient critical consideration' and an entire world of artifice experienced through embodied mobile devices. In response there is a 'weaving metaphor' and performance art with the intentional use of artifice/illusion to allow for multistability and 'implicit idealism' in a complex and unpredictable sensory world of ontological experiments and case studies. Allowing for multistable interpretations, variational theory, and the study of illusions, technoscience researchers and users of emerging technologies can develop heuristics for interpreting the world through devices, if programmers of these technologies make the hermeneutics accessible and visually interpretable. Both groups must expand the purview of the 'readable technologies' of Patrick Heelan, allowing for an expanding material hermeneutics of postphenomenology that is poised to become a praxis of perception for users of ubiquitous digital technologies and devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most accounts of responsibility focus on one type of responsibility, moral responsibility, or address one particular aspect of moral responsibility such as agency. This article outlines a broader framework to think about responsibility that includes causal responsibility, relational responsibility, and what I call "narrative responsibility" as a form of "hermeneutic responsibility", connects these notions of responsibility with different kinds of knowledge, disciplines, and perspectives on human being, and shows how this framework is helpful for mapping and analysing how artificial intelligence (AI) challenges human responsibility and sense-making in various ways. Mobilizing recent hermeneutic approaches to technology, the article argues that next to, and interwoven with, other types of responsibility such as moral responsibility, we also have narrative and hermeneutic responsibility—in general and for technology. For example, it is our task as humans to make sense of, with and, if necessary, against AI. While from a posthumanist point of view, technologies also contribute to sense-making, humans are the experiencers and bearers of responsibility and always remain in charge when it comes to this hermeneutic responsibility. Facing and working with a world of data, correlations, and probabilities, we are nevertheless condemned to make sense. Moreover, this also has a normative, sometimes even political aspect: acknowledging and embracing our hermeneutic responsibility is important if we want to avoid that our stories are written elsewhere—through technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Screen time has become a hot button issue in psychology with researchers fiercely debating its mental effects. If we want to understand the psychological dynamics of technology use, however, a numerical conceptualization of screen time will lead us to gloss over crucial distinctions. To make this point, the present article takes a hermeneutic approach to a negative form of screen time known as 'phubbing', which is the practice of snubbing conversational partners in favor of one's phone. Using interview data, it is demonstrated that whether or not phone use amounts to phubbing, that is, whether or not it tips over and becomes harmful, depends on a host of contextual factors such as relation (who), content (what), purpose (why), timing (when), and communication (how). These findings demonstrate that not all screen time is created equal: what is harmful and inappropriate in one context is benign in another, and vice versa. Simply put, screen time is not a numerical entity whose causal effects we can measure and explain, but a meaningful activity that we must try to understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patrick Heelan, with background in quantum theory and in hermeneutic phenomenology, investigated not only the hermeneutical philosophy of science but also the parallels between quantum mechanics and human experience in general and the logic of changes of worldview. Heelan's closeness to Aristotle and Lonergan, often neglected, is discussed, and issues concerning Heelan's treatment of the social context of science are raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many philosophers of science and technology who see themselves as coming "after" Husserl also claim that their phenomenology is hermeneutical. Yet they neither practice the same sort of phenomenology, nor do they all have the same understanding of hermeneutics. Moreover, their differences often seem to be more a function of different pre-selected substantive commitments—say, to take a "material" turn or to be resolutely "empirical"—than the product of any serious effort to clarify what it is be hermeneutical. In this essay, after some discussion of Dilthey's reception among post-Husserlians (especially Patrick Heelan and Don Ihde), I consider how aspiring hermeneuts might make their own pre-possession of substantive and methodological commitments a hermeneutical topic. This is, of course, is not just a scholarly question of how post-Husserlian phenomenologists might make themselves more phenomenological. Without thoughtful self-awareness of these commitments, one's assumptions about the use of technology, design, the place of science in the larger culture and in relation to conceptions of human flourishing—all of these assumptions are likely to pass through into technoscientific practice with insufficient critical consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Don Ihde and Lambros Malafouris (Philosophy and Technology 32:195–214, 2019) have argued that "we are homo faber not just because we make things but also because we are made by them." The emphasis falls on the idea that the things that we create, use, rely on—that is, those things with which we engage—have a recursive effect on human existence. We make things, but we also make arrangements, many of which are long-standing, material, social, normative, economic, institutional, and/or political, and many of which are supported by various technologies, including AI, more and more. Critical theorists, such as Habermas, have argued that we need a "depth" or critical hermeneutics (one that combines hermeneutical understanding with scientific explanation) to provide a full account of this kind of recursivity. For Habermas, the explanatory aspect of critical hermeneutics has been modeled on neo-Marxist and neo-Freudian theories. We propose a new critical hermeneutical approach that uses the tools of embodied cognitive science, affordance theory, material engagement theory, and the concept of the socially extended mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay raises the question of material hermeneutics in Heelan's philosophy of techno-science. For Heelan, a continental philosophy of technoscience, referring to Husserl and Heidegger and especially to Merleau-Ponty, features hermeneutic contexts of mathematics and measurement as well as laboratory observation, including what the later Heelan spoke of as "portable laboratories," for the sake of objectivity and "meaning making." For Paul Feyerabend, this material practice corresponded to the use of both techniques of observation and instrumentation, and not less "propaganda" in the case of Galileo which practice for Heelan included the ontological status of measures and numbers as well as apprenticeship in what Heelan called "contingent local practical cultural milieus." The essay includes a discussion of Heidegger on mathematics and Bruno Latour on pasteurization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embodied cognition is an interpretative—or hermeneutical—cognition inherent in motor-sensory perception intrinsically informed by biological and sociocultural memory, a cognition embedded in the organism as well as the socio-cultural environment interacting with it (Ward et al. TOPOI 36:365–375, 2017), of which technologies are a part. Yet, smart machines are advancing on human abilities to perceive and interpret concerning the accuracy, quantity, and quality of the data processed. Machines process and categorize images, perform classification tasks, they calculate and perform pattern analysis, all machine learning processes are task-specific. Machine learning processes resemble human interpretative processes; however, these are two very different ways of "dealing with something," although both can be said to be hermeneutical, one enactive, the other material; the first is a meaning-generating interpretative process, the second a statistics-based information output. The information extracted from all the data fed into the computer is the end-product of machine learning, whereas human interpretative enactments are continuous and necessary for any application of the information output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a framework for analysing how digital software and models become mediums for creative imagination in architectural design. To understand the hermeneutics of these relationships, we develop key concepts from Material Engagement Theory (MET) and Postphenomenology (PP). To push these frameworks into the realm of digital design, we develop the concept of Digital Materiality. Digital Materiality describes the way successive layers of mathematics, code, and software come to mediate enactive perception, and the possibilities of creative material engagement actualised in work with software. Just as molecular materials come to transform action with material objects, so digital materiality comes to enable and transform creative practices with computers. Digital architectural design form a new space for ongoing enactive discovery and creativity through manipulation of digital models and their underlying software environments. By shifting relationships within their digital models, architects can direct their attention, intention, and imagination towards widely different aspects of the model. Here, creative imagination becomes a fundamentally situated activity where mind emerges through dynamic interaction between a variety of embodied, material, and cultural domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Alberto Romele's book, "Digital Hermeneutics," which explores the understanding and implications of digital technologies in our lives. Romele argues that as technologies become more integrated and autonomous, the need for interpretation and hermeneutics re-emerges. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part focusing on the relationship between reality and digital representations, and the second part delving into the ontological question of whether digital machines have interpretational capacities. The article concludes by discussing the political and social implications of digital hermeneutics, particularly in relation to ethics and the loss of individual agency. Romele's book is a significant contribution to the field of philosophy and ethics of technology, offering a new perspective on the impacts of technology for practitioners in various fields. While the book is valuable, the author offers some critiques regarding certain digressions, lack of context in examples, and the need for further unpacking of arguments. Despite these critiques, the book is an impressive resource for understanding the hermeneutic aspects of digital technologies and will be valuable for students and researchers in related fields. Future research can explore the sociological aspects of digital hermeneutics, develop a method for investigating hermeneutical aspects of digital technologies, and explore the contribution of digital hermeneutics to ethics of technology and responsible innovation. [Extracted from the article]

What is the relation between material hermeneutics, bodies, perception and materials? In this article, I shall argue cultural learning processes tie them together. Three aspects of learning can be identified in cultural learning processes. First, all learning is tied to cultural practices. Second, all learning in cultural practice entangle humans' ability to recognize a material world conceptually, and finally the boundaries of objects, the object we perceive, are set by shifting material-conceptual entanglements. All these aspects are important for material hermeneutics in a technoculture. Postphenomenology has expanded the connection between hermeneutics and phenomenology by focusing on studies of how perception, bodies, materials, the sensual realm and hermeneutics are entwined when we perceive the world through technologies. Following Don Ihde, hermeneutics expands beyond interpretation of texts in the humanities. We can interpret materials as for instance animal bones to make new sense of the Bible. New technologies have expanded material hermeneutics, when we can 'look' into bodies and 'perceive' below surfaces. Interpretation via such tools in a technoculture, both limit and extend our hermeneutic horizons in the humanities as well as in the natural sciences. Furthermore, from the perspective of cultural learning processes, material hermeneutics in the human and natural sciences depend on more than mediating instruments. Material hermeneutics also involve the material cultural environments of scientific apparatuses and the scientists' processes of learning in cultural practice. This changes the focus from relations in postphenomenology to processes of relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research attempts to evaluate the hermeneutic characteristics of catuṣkoṭi (tetralemma) in the 'Nirvāṇa' Chapter of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Ch. 25), focusing on the identity thesis between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra. Regarding the structure of the tetralemma posited by Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-ca. 250), this study criticizes the dialectical interpretation of Robinson and Kajiyama from the perspective of Siderits and Katsura's semantic approach to the extent that it does not deny ultimate truth. This sets it apart from the semantic view presented by Siderits and Garfield (J Indian Philos 41:655–664, 2013). To support this position, the commentaries of Piṅgala (ca. 4C) and Candrakīrti (ca. 600–ca. 650) are also used, along with Nāgārjuna's Vigrahavyāvartanī. From this standpoint, the meaning of non-duality of nirvāṇa and saṃsāra is evaluated, in the sense that both are negated in the ultimate sense, as opposed to the metaphysical view, which interprets the tetralemma in a dialectical way. Siderits and Katsura suggests that, as in the case of nirvāṇa, "just as the four lemmas applying to saṃsāra is rejected, ultimately there is no such state as saṃsāra," because it is empty of its intrinsic nature. Following this line of reasoning, the thesis of Tathāgata in 25.17 and 25.18 can also be interpreted semantically as "there is no real distinction between before and after death, due to the absence of intrinsic nature (svabhāva) in Tathāgata." Likewise, the semantic approach here negates the four propositions of nirvāṇa and saṃsāra only, as operated when clinging to identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study a case that applies hermeneutics to social sciences, in particular to the Austrian school of economics. We argue that an inaccurate treatment of hermeneutics contributed to an epistemological downgrade of the Austrian school in the economic scientific community. We discuss how this shortcoming can be fixed and how a proper hermeneutic application to the Austrian school explains why this school of thought is neither positivist nor postmodern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent advancements in therapeutic and diagnostic medicine, along with the creation of large biobanks and methods for monitoring health technologies, have improved the prospects for preventing, treating, and curing illness. These same advancements, however, give rise to a plethora of ethical questions concerning good decision-making and best action. These ethical questions engage policymakers, practitioners, scientists, and researchers from a variety of fields in different ways. Collaborations between professionals in the medical and health sciences and the social sciences and humanities often take an asymmetrical form, as when social scientists use ethnographic approaches to study the moral issues and practices of physicians. The ethics laboratory described in this article is a cross-sectoral and inter-disciplinary forum for collaborative investigation on important moral topics. It offers an experimental way of unpacking implied assumptions, underlying values, and comparable notions from different professional healthcare fields. The aim of this article is to present the ethics laboratory's methodology. The article offers a model and a hermeneutical framework that rests on a dialogical approach to ethical questions. The model and the framework derive from a Danish research project, Personalized Medicine in the Welfare State. This article uses personalized medicine as a point of reference, though it offers an argument for the applicability of the model more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the contemporary ethical debates have put in value the rational feature of feelings because of the estimative intentionality that is implied in them. In this context, some claim that the intentionality of emotions is a kind of value perception, as Phenomenology stressed at the beginning of the twentieth century, particularly Max Scheler, by analysing emotional Feeling [Fühlen] in the frame of emotional life. In order to extend the context of this philosophical debate, and after describing Scheler's phenomenology of feelings of the intentional and non-intentional emotional life, firstly, we defend theaxiologicalandemotionalintentionalityasdoubleintentionality that—in our understanding—Scheler analyses phenomenologically, while taking distance from Franz Brentano and Edmund Husserl's intentional structure of estimative emotions. And, secondly, we propose a tentative interpretation of the link between estimative and emotional double intentionality as livingstructureofethicallife, in the light of Martin Heidegger's Hermeneutical Phenomenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the deontological view of morality is connected to extreme and massive forms of violence through a kind of phenomenological necessity. In the first main section, I examine one family of such violence, which usually comes under the label of "religious violence". I argue that it is not the religious element but the disqualification of context from the realm of justification which characterizes such violence. In the second main section, I examine the phenomenology of duty to conclude that duty, by definition, denies any normative relevance to context. In the third main section, I use this sketch of a phenomenology of duty to propose a hypothesis about the underpinnings of the connection between mass violence and duty, namely, that the notion of duty carries with it the exclusion of moderation, and places the agent before an impossible situation that can only be resolved by violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I demonstrate that Friedrich Nietzsche offers us a unique form of hermeneutic critique. In particular, I contend that when reading Nietzsche's perspectivism and will to power in light of each other, they provide us with the tools to overcome habits of interpretation through the concepts of genealogy and creative hermeneutics. I show this in three sections. In section one, I introduce Nietzsche's perspectivism and situate it within his concept of the will to power. In doing so, I demonstrate that interpretations exist amidst a complex field of agonistic, reciprocal relations in life's constant production of meaning. In section two, I then analyze how certain interpretations sediment into habits, forming harmful blind spots in interpretive activity. Such habits, Nietzsche shows, when privileged as prima facie 'True' and left uncontested exclude different ways of interpreting and existing, stagnating the production of meaning and denying the agonistic conditions of life. In the final section, I argue that Nietzsche critiques such habits in the two directions of genealogy and creative hermeneutics. Through the backward approach of genealogy, Nietzsche problematizes the habit, excavates its lowly origin, and deconstructs its supposed universality. Through the forward approach of creative hermeneutics, he overcomes and reinterprets them out of their origins, experiments with difference and multiplicity, and engages in an ongoing critique to open up new perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work done so far on the understanding of mathematical (proof) texts focuses mostly on logical and heuristical aspects; a proof text is considered to be understood when the reader is able to justify inferential steps occurring in it, to defend it against objections, to give an account of the “main ideas”, to transfer the proof idea to other contexts etc. (see, e.g., Avigad in The philosophy of mathematical practice, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008). In contrast, there is a rich philosophical tradition dealing with the concept of understanding and interpreting texts, namely philosophical hermeneutics, represented, e.g., by Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger or Gadamer. In this tradition, “understanding” generally refers to the integration in a comprehensive (historical, existential, life-worldly,...) context. In this article, we take some first steps towards exploring the question how the ideas from philosophical hermeneutics presented in Gadamer’s “Truth and Method” apply to mathematical texts and what (if anything) can be learned from these for the didactics and presentation of mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies (Alaou-Ismaili et al. 2020; Kilic et al. Eur J Radiol 56:212–219, 2005) among experienced sub-specialized neurosurgeons described divergent perceptions of surgical risk for venous sacrifice in posterior fossa surgery. Three galenic veins stood out as controversial in venous risk assessment and underexplored in the literature: the internal occipital vein (IOV), the precentral cerebellar vein (PCV), and the superior vermian vein (SVV). We have conducted a narrative review based on a systematic literature search to analyze terminology and anatomic descriptions and to suggest a coherent synthesis of published data on these veins. A systematic PubMed literature search was carried out using the keywords: "posterior fossa," "venous anatomy," and "radiology." Relevant radiological, microsurgical, and anatomical articles were selected if they described the anatomy of the three veins. Anatomical descriptions were analyzed with hermeneutic methodology alongside the articles' radiological and anatomical dissection pictures. New illustrations were created to depict the synthesized image of the venous anatomy. A total of 13 articles described the anatomy and terminology of the relevant veins. The descriptions of the IOV included smaller non-occipital vessels that confused the identification of the vessel. IOV is analyzed to be the vein draining the primary visual cortex, which drains into the vein of Galen (VG). The PCV and SVV enter the VG from below and are fused in almost half of all studied patients, creating a third vessel by the name of the superior cerebellar vein. A conscientious narrative review and hermeneutic analysis produced a synthesized, uniform picture of terminology and anatomy. Consensus on anatomical descriptions and definitions are indispensable for validation of anatomy, research into anatomical variation, for surgical planning and documentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the late 1970s, Catalan architect Manuel de Solà-Morales focuses his research on understanding territory as an architectural construct. Influenced by post-war French urban geography and, especially, by the Italian debates about the città-territorio and Henri Lefebvre's notion of total urbanization, Solà-Morales seeks to define methods of territorial analysis and description with the purpose of understanding how architecture can contribute to articulate an urbanized territory. The crucial piece of this intellectual quest is the research 'La forma d'un país' ('The Shape of a Country'), an atlas in which the production of maps is simultaneously understood as an act of territorial description and territorial design. In Solà-Morales' terminology: maps are already 'plans'; their conception needs to move from the 'literal' to the 'literary'. The goal of this article is to interrogate this cartographic project, by asking what its value is both within Solà-Morales broader theorization of territorial production, and for a contemporary understanding of the relations between architecture and territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]