Micro- and Macro-Hermeneutics of Science

Many recent debates on the tasks and purposes of hermeneutic philosophy of science suggest a distinction between micro- and macro-hermeneutics of science. What I refer to here is a distinction between a hermeneutic theory of effective-historical consciousness on the level of scientific community and a hermeneutic-ontological analysis of the nature of modern science. Certainly, the distinction I have in mind has nothing to do with the distinction between micro- and macro-foundations in contemporary philosophy of social sciences. Micro-hermeneutics is not to be considered as a sort of methodological individualism. Micro-hermeneutics does not strive for interpretative explanations of individual behavior. Its aim is not to interpret scientific enterprise by referring only to the “intentional properties” of individuals who are involved in this enterprise. Micro-hermeneutics is rather a kind of social holism because it starts out from the ontological primordiality of the scientific-community’s modes of constructing a world of research objects.