Finitude, Fallibilism and Education towards Non-dogmatism: Gadamer’s hermeneutics in science...

Finitude, Fallibilism and Education

towards Non-dogmatism: Gadamer’s

hermeneutics in science education

ANNIINA LEIVISKA

Institute of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki

Abstract

The philosophy of science has witnessed continuous controversy since the mid-twentieth

century regarding the justification of science’s privileged position, and which has also

reverberated in the philosophy of science education. This contribution brings to the discussion

the viewpoint of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. I suggest that by relat-

ing to the idea of the fallibility of knowledge, Gadamerian philosophy provides a compromise

between the extreme positions in the aforementioned debate. Gadamerian hermeneutics also

has implications for science education: from the Gadamerian perspective, science education

should (1) induce experiences of negation that familiarize learners with their own pre-

understanding and (2) introduce learners to the fallibility of knowledge. Finally, I argue that

both instances (1) and (2) aim to cultivate non-dogmatism in learners.

Keywords: Gadamer, philosophical hermeneutics, fallibilism, science education,

non-dogmatism

Introduction

Many of the recent proposals regarding the philosophy of contemporary science

education suggest that a ‘new paradigm’ of science education is required; namely, one

that takes into account the postpositivist tendencies of the philosophy of science

which emphasize the contingent, linguistic and historical nature of scientific

knowledge and pay attention to science’s underlying interests, power struggles and

interconnections with the lifeworld. In recent discussion in the philosophy of

education, the theme has been approached from such perspectives as Lyotardian

postmodernism (Zembylas, 2000, 2008), the hermeneutic–phenomenological concept

of the lifeworld (Kozoll & Osborne, 2004), Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics (Blades, 2006)

and postcolonialism (Carter, 2006), to mention a few. On the other hand, these

proposals have raised a counter-view which suggests that the philosophy of science’s

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2013

Vol. 45, No. 5, 516–530, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2012.732012

� 2013 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

‘new paradigm’ fails to recognize some of the essential features of both natural science

and science education (Siegel, 2002; Shulz, 2007). This counter-view promotes uni-

versalism and realism as points of departure for the philosophy of science.1

Since the 1960s the role of hermeneutic philosophy has been important in devel-

oping the ‘new paradigm’ of the philosophy of science as well as science education:

Patrick Heelan (1989, 1991, 1997) is one of the first and most important figures to

examine the relevance of a hermeneutic–phenomenological approach in the context of

the philosophy of natural sciences. However, other significant authors such as Joseph

Kockelmans (1985, 1993) and Martin Eger (2006a, 2006c, 2006d) should also be

mentioned in this context. Heelan and Kockelmans have focused mainly on

Heidegger’s philosophy, whereas Eger has more directly concentrated on the relevance

of Gadamerian hermeneutics to the philosophy of science. Eger’s work is also

particularly significant from an educational perspective, since he directly addresses the

hermeneutical problematic of science education (Eger, 2006b, 2006e).

In this article I focus on the relevance of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics to

science education and thereby follow the path pointed out by Martin Eger. I suggest

that the above-mentioned contradiction in the philosophy of science education may

be resolved through Gadamerian philosophy: on one hand, Gadamerian hermeneutics

emphasizes the historical and linguistic contingency of scientific knowledge and

thereby is associated with the previously mentioned ‘new paradigm’ of the philosophy

of science. On the other, Gadamerian hermeneutics distances itself from radically

postmodern philosophies, of which I will use Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism as an

example.2 Although Rortyan and Gadamerian philosophies both represent the post-

Heideggerian turn in the philosophy of science, crucial differences exist between the

two that make Gadamerian hermeneutics a more favourable framework for the philos-

ophy of science and science education.

I also suggest that the Gadamerian philosophy of science enables a strong commit-

ment to the idea of fallibilism as a constitutive principle of scientific thinking. By

fallibilism, I refer to the philosophical doctrine according to which knowledge is

profoundly uncertain, corrigible and at least to a certain degree dependent on contin-

gent factors.3 Gadamer himself does not use the concept of fallibilism, and generally

it is seldom used in hermeneutic philosophy. However, I suggest that in the context

of the philosophy of science, Gadamerian thinking can be associated with the central

ideas of fallibilism. In addition, I argue that adopting a Gadamerian philosophy of sci-

ence can have significant consequences for science education.

The first section of the article concentrates on the implications of Gadamerian

hermeneutics for the philosophy of science in juxtaposition with Rortyan neopragma-

tism. I will demonstrate how philosophical hermeneutics detaches itself from some of

the relativistic baggage entailed in Rorty’s philosophy. Then I will examine the inter-

relatedness of the Gadamerian notion of the finitude of knowledge with the concept

of fallibilism. The second section focuses on the relevance of Gadamerian hermeneu-

tics to the philosophy of science education. I will begin with an argument that scien-

tific research and learning science share the same ontological structure. Subsequently,

I will introduce the idea of learning science as an act of understanding, one which

requires ‘experiences of negation’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 349). I will also suggest how

Finitude, Fallibilism and Education towards Non-dogmatism 517

such experiences could be induced in educational contexts. Another important issue

addressed here is the role of fallibilism in science education. At the end of the section

I will demonstrate how both negative experiences and the notion of fallibilism are

connected with the idea of science education as education towards non-dogmatism.

Philosophical Hermeneutics as an Approach to the Philosophy of Science

Unlike many of his nineteenth century predecessors, Gadamer perceives understand-

ing not as a methodological or epistemological position, but as the universal mode of

being that pervades all areas of human existence. Philosophical hermeneutics attempts

to outline the specifically human condition of ‘being-in-the-world’ (Gadamer, 2008,

p. 3), which is distinctively finite. Here, finitude refers to the idea that understanding

becomes possible through an already existent historical–linguistic pre-understanding,

which can never be perfectly transparent to the experiencing person. Hence, human

beings are never completely aware of all the elements that constitute their understand-

ing of the world, and therefore their being remains limited in many ways. For

Gadamer, the historicity and linguisticality of being means that human beings occupy

a restricted ‘horizon’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 301) with a view into the world, instead of

being able to capture the reality in itself. Gadamer, however, sees the finitude of

human existence as a positive potential, one which ultimately motivates a person to

pursue knowledge and which makes the ‘infinite perfectibility’ (Gadamer, 2004,

p. 444) of being possible as well.

Hermeneutic understanding is not restricted to literary interpretation and aesthetic

experience (the examples of understanding that Gadamer uses in Truth and method).

Rather, the potential to understand is present in every occasion in which a person

encounters something that addresses him or her, or is addressed by him or her, but is

not immediately intelligible. The encounter catalyses a projection and an anticipation

of meaning which are at first entirely based on the interpreter’s pre-understanding. If,

however, the object of interpretation resists the anticipated meaning and demands

recognition in itself, the interpreter is bound to listen to the object and enter a shared

space in which a new meaning can be established (Gadamer, 2004). This meaning is

not the object’s original one, but rather the result of a ‘fusion of horizons’ (Gadamer,

2004, p. 305); namely, a meaning determined by both the pre-understanding of the

interpreter and the horizon of the object of knowledge. The act of understanding

momentarily illuminates the borders of the interpreter’s horizon and allows, up to a

certain point, a redetermination of those boundaries. This may, at best, result in an

understanding that is more profound and more sophisticated than the one the inter-

preter began with. Still, since there is no context-independent way of determining the

certainty of this knowledge, hermeneutic understanding is ultimately an endless task.4

The universality of the hermeneutical problem (Gadamer, 2008) implies that the

finitude described above encompasses all cultural forms, including the natural

sciences. A theoretical attitude or a correct method cannot elevate us from the

primordial ‘thrownness’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 254) that characterizes our being.

Instead, ‘we are always already biased in our thinking and knowing by our linguistic

interpretation of the world’, as Gadamer (2008, p. 64) himself states. The idea of the

518 Anniina Leiviska

inevitable pre-conditionedness of natural scientific knowledge is not, however, new to

the former tradition of the philosophy of science. Rather, it has been discussed in con-

nection with many concepts, of which probably the most well known is the notion of

the theory-ladenness of observation (Hanson, 1958; Kuhn, 1962; Feyerabend, 1981a,

1981b), in many different discourses such as the constructivist sociology of science

(Bloor, 1991; Latour & Woolgar, 1986; Collins & Pinch, 1998) and in a variety of

postmodern philosophies (Rorty, 1980, 1989, 1991; Lyotard, 1984; Rouse, 1996,

1999).

The positive contribution that these approaches have brought to the philosophy of

science is the recognition of the contingent, social and subjective conditions of scien-

tific knowledge and research. However, from the viewpoint of the natural sciences,

many of these approaches entail a specific negative input; that is, the focus of the

subjective, sociopolitical and contextual features of scientific research gains such a

central position in them that the whole idea and purpose of natural scientific research

as attaining knowledge about nature becomes in danger of being left aside. In what

follows, I will concentrate on the example of Rortyan neopragmatism as a representa-

tive of postmodern philosophy of science, which embodies a great deal of the previ-

ously mentioned negative input. I suggest that through Gadamerian philosophical

hermeneutics, many aspects of this input can, however, be overcome without

diminishing the positive contribution just mentioned.

What seems to motivate Rorty——and many other postmodern philosophers——is

the objection to the ‘legitimation project of modern science’ (Ginev, 2005, p. 194). In

his philosophy of science, Rorty aims to demonstrate that natural science is not ‘a nat-

ural kind’ (Rorty, 1991, p. 46); in other words the natural sciences do not have spe-

cial access to reality, which could be legitimized by the use of a specific scientific

method. Rorty (1991) claims that a demarcation between practices that are ratio-

nal——and thus possessing a set of procedures of justification that lead to truth as cor-

respondence with reality——and practices that are merely local and thus able to

provide only ‘ethnocentric’ (Rorty, 1991, p. 43) justifications, is artificial, and no

more than a heir of the objectivistic and foundational tradition of modernity. Hence,

Rorty’s philosophy aims at a postmetaphysical critique of the epistemologically cen-

tred modern culture in which science holds a privileged position.

Fundamentally, Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics belongs to the same

tradition of the critique of modernity as Rortyan neopragmatism. Like Rorty,

Gadamer (2004) argues that definite knowledge of which parts of our understanding

are connected with our historical being and which some can be defined as corre-

sponding with reality is, in the end, impossible. Rather, everything that we know and

understand is involved in our historical being. Although Gadamer remains somewhat

cautious in his notions regarding the natural sciences, his critique of the self-forgetful-

ness of the Enlightenment and the modern sciences evidently also concerns the tradi-

tion of modern natural science. Therefore, Gadamerian hermeneutics rejects any

version of epistemological foundationalism (namely the idea that there could be any

constant, ahistorical or certain foundations of our knowledge), and thus, with Rorty,

continues the post-Heideggerian turn in the philosophy of science.


However, I suggest that crucial differences can be detected between Gadamerian

hermeneutics and Rorty’s philosophy, of which I will now concentrate on the question

of the dialogical nature of natural scientific research. Natural science specifically con-

cerns our relationship with the natural world, which, from a hermeneutic viewpoint,

differentiates it from any form of human action that is based on a relationship

between two linguistic beings. A true universalization of the hermeneutical problem,

however, requires a commitment to the view that there is no form of human action in

which the constitution of meaning is not dialogical (Ginev, 1999). It is clear that nat-

ure cannot be perceived as a dialogue partner in a similar sense as human beings, and

thereby the act of meaning making perhaps remains to some degree dominated by the

human framework of science.

Nevertheless, such authors as Ginev (1999), Eger (2006d) and Heelan (1997) have

paid attention to those aspects of scientific research that favour the idea of research as

a dialogical process. They suggest that the instruments used in scientific experiments

function as ‘interpreters’ between nature and the scientist, and that it is nature that

ultimately provides the data, or ‘text’, that the researcher needs to interpret (Ginev,

1999). Eger (2006d) further notes that experimental equipment and cognitive tools

(theories and models) function as ways of extending the scientist’s perceptual reach,

and by making oneself at home in them the scientist is, in a sense, ‘embodied’

(Eger, p. 34) in them. We could also say that through this embodiment, the scientist

expands his or her horizon to enable communication with nature. Of course, this still

happens from a profoundly human standpoint, but it is important to acknowledge

that such communication and the tools used in it are not created independent of

nature.5

I suggest that more radically postmodern philosophies——Rortyan philosophy, for

instance——lack the previous recognition of the dialogicality of natural scientific

research. Rorty (1989) seems to believe that ultimately the world cannot be held

accountable for our decisions regarding which language games should be played in

science:

... the fact that Newton’s vocabulary lets us predict the world more easily

than Aristotle’s does not mean that the world speaks Newtonian. (Rorty,

1989, p. 6)

Gadamer would, of course, agree that we can never reach the actual ‘language of

nature’, but he would, according to my view, resist the idea that we have no possible

way of determining which of the human interpretations of this language is preferable.

As Gadamer (2004) remarks,

... we find that meanings cannot be understood in an arbitrary way. Just as

we cannot continually misunderstand the use of a word without it affecting

the meaning of the whole, so we cannot stick blindly to our own fore-

meaning about the thing if we want to understand the meaning of another.

(Gadamer, 2004, p. 271)

One of the strengths of Gadamerian hermeneutics lies in the idea that language

mediates our world view (Wachterhauser, 2002). This means that we can, through


the medium of language, encounter things that do not initially belong to our horizon,

and recognize them in their potential unfamiliarity or unexpectedness. Meaning mak-

ing takes place in the ‘I–Thou relation’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 352) between the inter-

preter, his or her prejudices and the object of knowledge; in this case, the scientist,

the scientific tradition and the natural phenomenon. Interpretation begins with the

language and expected meanings (i.e. theories, models and hypotheses) of the scien-

tist, but since the process of understanding takes place in a living relationship with

the phenomenon being studied, the scientist should not hold on to his or her preju-

dices if they turn out to be inadequate in the process. Consequently, scientific

research involves aspects of ‘construction’, but also elements of the ‘thing-in-itself’, as

well as elements from the scientific tradition. Scientific knowledge cannot escape all

bindings of prejudices, tradition and language, but simultaneously it cannot be totally

arbitrary. Rather, the possibility that the web of theories and experiments involved in

the process is inaccurate diminishes with every experiment, but is never entirely

absent. As Eger (2006a, p. 68) remarks, ‘if this is not God’s truth, neither is it a

bargain struck by politicians in the back room’ or, if I may add, the result of an

arbitrary choice.6

The reason why it is important to distinguish Gadamerian philosophical hermeneu-

tics from more radically postmodern philosophies is that it maintains the scientifically

crucial hope of attaining knowledge of the world; namely, the kind of knowledge that

is not constituted independently of the object of knowing. I believe one of the reasons

why natural scientists hesitate to take seriously any ‘strong programme’ of the

philosophy of science is precisely the loss of scientific credibility which sometimes

follows when focusing specifically on the ‘human dimensions’ of scientific research.

My argument is, however, that hermeneutic philosophy manages to take into account

the human restrictions of knowledge without succumbing to any form of relativism.

Gadamer does not suggest that every belief is as good as another, nor is he saying that

truth is equivocal or relative to a vocabulary. What he is saying is that because of the

linguistic and historical nature of our understanding, there are necessary restraints to

our ability to know, and therefore our knowledge is never definitive or absolutely

certain. This insight, I claim, is already ‘encoded’ in the idea of fallibilism, which in

my view constitutes the core of scientific thinking in the modern natural sciences. I

suggest that through hermeneutics we gain a deepened understanding of what this

fallibility is a consequence of. As Wachterhauser (2002, p. 70) notes, Gadamerian

hermeneutics provides us with ‘a more nuanced commitment to fallibilism’ by

describing the preconditions that both enable and restrict our ability to know.

What is, of course, central in such fallibilistic orientation is the scientist’s ability to

identify and question his or her prejudices. When the scientist encounters something

that challenges his or her beliefs, such an opportunity is a necessary but not sufficient

condition for understanding (Borda, 2007). What is needed is a reflective ability to

question one’s prior understanding, and a willingness to recognize the fallible and

continuously self-correcting nature of scientific knowledge. This ability is what

Gadamer calls a ‘consciousness of being affected by history’ (wirkungsgeschichtliches

Bewußtsein, Gadamer, 2004, p. 301). In the case of the natural sciences, this

consciousness is primarily of the contingent nature of scientific theories and methods.


What I have demonstrated here is that philosophical hermeneutics provides an

approach to the philosophy of science that overcomes some of the difficulties

encountered in postmodern philosophies of science. Although hermeneutic philoso-

phy springs from an acknowledgement of the necessary preconditions and limits of

science, it distances itself from viewpoints that, by relativizing natural scientific

knowledge, compromise some of science’s central features. Hence, Gadamerian

hermeneutics contributes to the philosophy of science in a way that fundamentally

is not alien or contradictory to the overall ideals or objectives of natural science.

The relevance of hermeneutic philosophy, however, becomes even more evident

when the focus is shifted from epistemological issues to the educational context.

The previously described consciousness of one’s historical affectedness requires

certain dispositions which depend on education. This issue will be examined in the

next section.

Philosophical Hermeneutics in Science Education

Before entering the actual issue of science education, we will have to ask, on what

grounds are such Gadamerian ideas that are applicable to science also valid in the

context of science education? For instance, in their debate on the Lyotardian interpre-

tation of science education, Roland Schulz (2007) accuses Michalinos Zembylas

(2000, 2008) of confusing the epistemology of learning with epistemology of science

and thus failing to recognize that some arguments can be endorsed in the former even

if rejected in the latter. In addition, Eger (2006d) poses the question of whether we

are confusing two different modes of action and two completely separate domains

when trying to apply approaches to science education similar to those that we have

applied to science.

However, I claim that ontologically the manner of knowing that characterizes our

being as humans encompasses both the being of a scientist and the being of a student.

Eger (2006d, p. 34) also concludes that the ‘student mode of being’ is, in fact, central

in science itself. From a Gadamerian viewpoint, both actions centre on the idea of

overcoming one’s current pre-understanding in order to gain new knowledge of the

subject matter or the phenomenon in question. In this sense, it seems reasonable to

ask whether we are not in fact looking at modes of being that are very similar in that

they both can be characterized as learning——or better——understanding.

The universality of the hermeneutical problem indeed implies that learning science

should be perceived as having the basic structure of understanding. As mentioned in

the first section, understanding requires a pre-understanding or a set of prejudices.

Gadamer (2004, p. 273) defines the concept of prejudice rather neutrally as a ‘judg-

ment that is rendered before all the elements that determine a situation have been

finally examined’. Prejudices are necessary preconditions for every act of understand-

ing, since they first allow one to address something or to be addressed by something:

if the supposed object of understanding is completely out of the range of one’s prior

beliefs and does not in any way relate to them, there is no possibility for real

understanding. Then again, if something is too familiar and does not provoke one’s

prejudices, the possibilities for understanding are, again, limited (Gadamer, 2004).


Consequently, the problematic of science education centres on the encounter

between the horizon of science and the student’s initial prejudices. In most cases, the

concepts involved in scientific language are profoundly different from the meanings

and the vocabulary that belong to the student’s initial language. The distance between

the two horizons makes the task of understanding especially challenging: what is

involved here is an attempt to capture the ‘ontological landscape’ (Eger, 2006b,

p. 236) of forces, which is different from the world experienced in everyday life. As

Eger (2006b, p. 237) correctly notes, a student’s sociocultural pre-understanding

sometimes radically affects scientific reflection, since the student already ‘has’, in

some natural, unreflected upon way, the thing later treated in a scientific way. In

other words, the object of scientific understanding is already pre-interpreted in the

natural language the student possesses. Learning sciences is thus always an extension

of language rather that a matter of learning an entirely new language.

The concept of ‘hermeneutical experience’ (Gadamer, 2004, pp. 352–355) allows

us to further illuminate the dynamic involved in learning the language of science: for

Gadamer, hermeneutical experience (as well as experience in general) is a transforma-

tive event, during which one becomes aware of the current limitations of one’s hori-

zon or world view. Hermeneutical experience occurs when something that we

encounter is not immediately intelligible to us and thus challenges, provokes and

finally negates our previous understanding of the world. Such a negation is, according

to Gadamer, a key element in the act of understanding, and thereby educationally

even more crucial than the actual content being learned. Gadamer (2004) remarks

that only the negative nature of experience makes it a productive event:

If a new experience of an object occurs to us, this means that hitherto we

have not seen the thing correctly and now know it better. Thus the negativ-

ity of experience has a curiously productive meaning. [...] We cannot, there-

fore have a new experience of any object at random, but it must be of such

nature that we gain better knowledge through it, not only of itself, but of

what we thought we knew before. (Gadamer, 2004, pp. 347–348)

Hence, the experienced negation opens one’s horizon to doubt and thereby enables a

partial re-evaluation and redetermination of one’s prior prejudices and the prior

understanding of the object. The experience thus gains an ontological significance:

the interpreter him or herself transforms along with the interpretation of the object.

In science education, the student’s educational experiences are necessarily facili-

tated by the teacher, since the student still lacks the experience and the dispositions

needed to put his or her own current horizon into question. The mediating function

of the teacher becomes especially crucial because of the specific nature of the subject

matter: the language of science, in many cases, is difficult or even impossible to adopt

at once, and hence the strategies employed in science education often need to be indi-

rect, participatory or operational (Eger, 2006b). I suggest that in order to enable

‘authentic’ understanding or learning in a Gadamerian sense——in which the student’s

prior world view is brought into a productive encounter with the scientific world

view——science education should involve strategies that are specifically designed to

enable such experiences of negation as described above. I suggest that strategies that


involve experiments, demonstrations or examples that entail a specific element of

unexpectedness may be especially useful in this context.

Let me provide a practical example of these strategies. Let us say that a teacher

attempts to introduce the concept of electromagnetic radiation to students. A herme-

neutically oriented teacher might begin by asking the students ‘what do you think

light is?’. One of the students might answer that light is ‘radiation’ and that it consists

of ‘particles’. The teacher might continue the dialogue with an attempt to clarify how

exactly the student understands the previous concepts. After acquiring an idea of the

student’s current prejudices about the matter, the teacher decides to conduct a

double-slit experiment in which the student’s assumption about the particle nature of

light becomes negated by the observation of the interference pattern the light creates.

The educationally crucial moment occurs when the student perceives the interference

pattern on the screen, attempts to interpret it according to his or her original assump-

tion, and realizes that it is not possible for particles to behave in such a manner that

the interference pattern evidences light to behave. The situation is likely to catalyse

an experience of negation and a following process of understanding between the stu-

dent’s initial assumptions and the physical phenomenon that, for the student, comes

into being in the course of the experiment.

From a Gadamerian viewpoint, enabling negative experiences in science education

is interlinked with another important educational approach that more directly con-

cerns the nature of natural scientific knowledge. This approach focuses on the idea of

the fallibility of knowledge as a crucial educational content in science education. As

emphasized in the previous section, the commitment to fallibilism——which is inti-

mately connected with the Gadamerian idea of awareness of one’s historical affected-

ness——constitutes the core of scientific thinking. In this sense, if an important goal of

science education is to introduce learners to the nature of natural scientific knowl-

edge, and to the intellectual orientation of a scientist, the acknowledgement of the fal-

lible nature of knowledge should be embraced and promoted not only within science

itself but in educational contexts as well. In what follows, I will introduce strategies

that may be especially worthwhile in education towards a scientific orientation that

sees a commitment to fallibilism as central.

The first strategy involves providing learners with examples in which formerly

accepted scientific models or theories have been proven incorrect or insufficient in

explaining the phenomenon in question. With today’s technology many of the exem-

plary experiments can also be conducted by the students themselves. The learners can

also be encouraged to consider different conditions under which a claim, a model or a

theory would be false. The purpose of both these methods is to allow learners to

adopt a doubting and questioning orientation towards scientific knowledge and to

encourage them to seek ‘disconfirmatory evidence’ (Leigh, 2007, p. 314) that would

falsify or cast doubt on the theory or claim at issue. As Leigh (2007) has suggested,

this kind of orientation does not come naturally to learners. Instead, people are more

likely to try to find evidence for the reasons that support their current knowledge and

thereby make the mistake of being satisfied with the present evidence. If, however, we

follow Gadamerian thinking, an awareness of the ‘infinite perfectibility’ (Gadamer,

2004, p. 444) of knowledge does not allow one to be satisfied with current proof.


Moreover, similar aims can be pursued by introducing students to the processual

nature of scientific research through a historical approach to the development of

selected scientific ideas. Eger (2006e, pp. 168, 176) already touched on this subject

by introducing the idea of a ‘process course’ to physics education. In this kind of his-

torical approach to science education it is important, however, to avoid the impression

that a ‘true method of science’ or the ‘ultimate truth’ is gradually revealed in the pro-

cess of working towards the present-day scientific results. Rather, what should be

emphasized is that today’s scientific knowledge is as uncertain as knowledge in times

past, and that what has been learned and cultivated in the course of scientific history

is rather the ability for ‘good thinking in general’ (Eger, 2006e, p. 175) instead of a

specifically scientific or methodological thinking that would have privileged access to

truth.

The two approaches——(1) introducing learners to negative experiences, and (2)

familiarizing them with the idea of the fallibility of knowledge——are interlinked in an

important way: the ultimate goal of both is to expose the learners to the experience of

human finitude. From the perspective of philosophical hermeneutics, one of the most

important tasks of science education is to reveal that our current knowledge of things

is not complete, and that gaining a wider, more comprehensive view of the world

necessitates openness towards experiences that may negate our current prejudices.

What may emerge from a continuum of similar experiences in different educational

situations is an ‘experienced’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 350) person, who, in Gadamer’s

words,

… is radically undogmatic; who, because of the many experiences he has

had and the knowledge he has drawn from them, is particularly well

equipped to have new experiences and to learn from them. (Gadamer,

2004, p. 350)

Such non-dogmatism is, of course, especially important as a quality of a scientist.

Therefore, cultivating it as a personal disposition of a student is, simultaneously, edu-

cating him or her into the intellectual orientation that scientific research necessitates.

A person with an educational history that consists of such experiences of negation as

described above is likely to recognize the infinite fallibility of scientific knowledge and

therefore adopt such features as ‘self-doubt’ and ‘humility’——that Gadamer (1992, p.

20) says ‘a man of science’ must have——into his or her scientific orientation.

From the perspective of Gadamerian hermeneutics, another important thing

remains to be said about the aims of science education, concerning the overall func-

tion of natural science in human life as a whole. For Gadamer, the role of science is

not primarily technical but rather ‘cosmological’, and has to do with the infinite per-

fectibility of human knowledge. Human beings as finite beings are driven by a con-

stant desire to know beyond their current restraints. ‘The genuine researcher is

motivated by a desire for knowledge and by nothing else’, as Gadamer (2008, p. 10)

himself states. In the natural sciences, this desire is directed towards knowledge of the

natural world and the universe and our abilities to interact with them.

Gadamer has in many respects criticized the technocratization of the natural

sciences and the manner in which technical interests have invaded not only the


natural sciences but all areas of human life (Gadamer, 1986, 2008). Such technocrati-

zation is, according to Gadamer (2008), a consequence of the illusion of the uncondi-

tioned and unbiased nature of scientific knowledge, which authorizes the sciences to

extend their control beyond the limits of science. Gadamer is rather sceptical about

the possibility of the natural sciences realizing their hermeneutical conditionedness.

He even goes so far as saying that ‘such pronouncements always have something

comical about them’ (Gadamer, 2008, p. 10). Despite Gadamer’s pessimism, I sug-

gest that science education should encourage learners to question the role and func-

tions of natural science in the context of the whole of human culture and society. I

also suggest that the hermeneutic approach to science education introduced here

encourages thinking and behaviour that is driven by a genuine desire to know, and

could accordingly influence the general view of the purposes of science as well as the

ways and forms in which scientific knowledge is utilized in our current social

practices.

Conclusions

The Gadamerian view of the dialogical nature of natural scientific research escapes

the relativization of scientific knowledge which is characteristic of many postmodern

philosophies of science. Nevertheless, Gadamerian hermeneutics rejects any possibility

of science having a privileged access to reality, which means that the same precondi-

tions and restraints that apply to other forms of knowledge hold true for scientific

knowledge as well. Because of this, the Gadamerian philosophy of science entails a

strong commitment to fallibilism.

Gadamerian hermeneutics also has significant consequences for science education.

As mentioned above, Martin Eger has been one of the most important authors to

address the issue of science education from the viewpoint of hermeneutic philosophy.

In this article I have further developed the idea that from a hermeneutic perspective,

learning science has the structure of understanding. In a Gadamerian interpretation of

science education, learning becomes a productive event through ‘experiences of nega-

tion’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 349) that also prepare learners for the intellectual orienta-

tion of a scientist. This orientation should be further encouraged by didactic

strategies that focus on demonstrating the fallible nature of scientific knowledge in

general. By inducing experiences of negation and introducing the idea of the fallibility

of knowledge, science education cultivates in students non-dogmatism as both a per-

sonal disposition of the learner, as well as a quality of the scientist. In addition,

because of the ‘self-forgetfulness’ that according to Gadamer (2008, p. 10) troubles

the modern natural sciences, students should be encouraged to look beyond the

boundaries of science and consider whether the current role and functions of science

in society today are in fact the ones we want science to have.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my friend, colleague and supervisor Katariina Holma PhD for her

insightful and valuable comments on the manuscript and also for her continued guidance and

support in my career. I am also grateful to Jouni Peltonen PhD for his constructive criticism


and comments on the manuscript. Furthermore, I would like to thank John Gage for the

language revision of the manuscript.

Notes

1. This discussion is rooted in the famous ‘Science Wars’, a rigorous debate in the 1990s on

the nature of the natural sciences and natural scientific knowledge between postmodernists

and defenders of the authority of Western science (Peters, 2006).

2. Categorizing Rorty under any specific ‘ism’ is problematic, since his work brings together

influences from several traditions. Aspects of his thinking may even be perceived as linking

him to the project of modernity, but his work also involves much that can be referred to as

exemplifying archetypal postmodern thinking. In addition, some elements of Rortyan phi-

losophy which do not directly concern the philosophy of science are closely related to

Gadamerian thinking, as Rorty (1980) himself has suggested. Hence, the juxtaposition

between Rorty’s and Gadamer’s philosophies which is presented in this article should not

be understood as a comprehensive representation of Rorty’s rich and multidimensional

philosophy.

3. As a formal doctrine, fallibilism first appeared in the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce

(1839–1914).

4. Gadamer’s work was greatly influenced by his teacher and colleague, Martin Heidegger

(1889–1976), who was the first to introduce the ontological turn in modern hermeneutics

with the idea of the primordial temporality of Being. Gadamer was particularly influenced

by Heidegger’s early work, especially Being and time (Sein und Zeit), which was originally

published in 1927.

5. The question of how the concepts of nature and the ‘world-in-itself’ (Gadamer, 2004, p.

444) should be understood in Gadamerian hermeneutics is somewhat problematic.

Gadamer himself states that ‘not only is the world world only insofar as it comes into

language, but language, too, has its real being only in the fact that the world is presented in

it’ (p. 440). What I think Gadamer means by this is that human experience of the world is

always fundamentally linguistic, and that therefore the world that we experience in language

would not, as such, exist without us. At the same time, however, the ‘world-in-itself’ (p.

444) is for Gadamer a regulative ideal that is a necessary prerequisite to understanding. In

order to overcome the dogmatism and tangibility of everyday experience, a person needs to

recognize that the things he/she treats as ‘things in themselves’ are, in fact, merely ‘for him/

her’. In other words, a person needs to understand that how things present themselves may

not be how they really are (Gadamer, 2004, pp. 461–462; Fristedt, 2010, p. 477). Giving

up the regulative ideal of the ‘world-in-itself’ (Gadamer, 2004, p. 444) would therefore

signify remaining captive within one’s own linguistic world view and not being able to

recognize that there are other interpretations and other possible ways of being. This is why

Gadamer (2004, p. 444) insists that in every world view ‘the existence of the world-in-itself

is intended’.

6. The modestly realistic reading of Gadamer’s hermeneutics presented in this article may

seem somewhat controversial because, according to several interpretations, Gadamer rejects

the basic assumptions associated with epistemological realism (Rorty, 1980; Ingram, 1984).

In addition, the fact that Gadamer’s work was deeply influenced by Heidegger goes against

a realistic understanding of his philosophy. In my view, however, a radically anti-realistic

reading of Gadamer’s hermeneutics would diminish the specific features that distinguish

Gadamer from such hermeneutical thinkers who advocate strongly deconstructive

programmes (e.g. Rorty and Jacques Derrida). Gadamerian hermeneutics should be

perceived as a critical corrective for traditional epistemology rather than a radical

renunciation of it (Wachterhauser, 2002, p. 55; see also Siljander, 2011, p. 508).


In Gadamer’s view, even if knowledge and truth remain at all times incomplete and

limited, every interpretation still makes a truth claim and in every interpretation the

‘thing-in-itself’ is intended (Gadamer, 2004, p. 444; Grondin, 1987, p. 51). For Gadamer,

interpretations are either accurate or inaccurate; they either contribute to knowledge or

prevent it (Gadamer, 2004, p. 271; Wachterhauser, 1999, p. 24). In this sense Gadamer is

an ‘uncompromising realist’ (Wachterhauser, 2002, p. 66), for whom interpretation that

merely serves one’s purposes or accords with one’s system of beliefs would be deeply

unsatisfying.

I agree with Brice Wachterhauser (2002, pp. 68–69) that Gadamer appears to be a

relativist, a sceptic or a constructivist only if we maintain the foundationalist belief that hav-

ing knowledge means being certain that we have knowledge. Although Gadamer claims that

humans as finite beings are never fully aware of all the factors that condition their

knowledge, he does not suggest that knowledge is entirely impossible or that we should give

up its pursuit altogether. Rather, he suggests that truth claims and judgements about

correspondence can be made without standing outside history and language

(Wachterhauser, 2002, p. 77).

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