Three-level Hermeneutics by Theodor Stylianopoulos

Rational - Choice Hermeneutics

Rational choice and hermeneutics seem at odds, but the tension can be fruitfully resolved. The conflict between them closely mirrors the earlier conflict between historicism and positivism. In interwar Vienna, an influential group of social scientists tried to combine the best elements of both approaches. Rational choice was united with Verstehen and the method of ideal types, as evidenced by t...

Horizons of Hermeneutics: Intercultural Hermeneutics in a Globalizing World

Starting from the often-used metaphor of the “horizon of experience” this article discusses three different types of intercultural hermeneutics, which respectively conceive hermeneutic interpretation as a widening of horizons, a fusion of horizons, and a dissemination of horizons. It is argued that these subsequent stages in the history of hermeneutics have their origin in—but are not fully res...

The Sociology of Knowledge and Its Consciousness By Theodor

Robert Merton, C. Wright Mills et al. repeatedly complained that the sociology of knowledge failed to solve its centralproblem of specifying the nexus between social and cognitive structures. Nonetheless, this field has remained limited to techniques of content analysis and correlation studies while failing to explain these categories and correlations other than by recourse to functionalist tru...

Emil Theodor Kocher 1841 – 1917

Hermeneutics, information and representation

By drawing from semiology, epistemology and philosophical hermeneutics, we discuss the way that computer systems, particularly systems used in collaborative work, represent information, situation and activity. In other words, we focus on approaches to representation in design for computer–supported collaborative work (CSCW). We point out similarities between discourse in hermeneutics and in the...