Beyond Objectivism and Relativism

PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PART ONE. BEYOND OBJECTIVISM AND RELATIVISM: AN OVERVIEW
Objectivism and Relativism
The Cartesian Anxiety
Postempiricist Philosophy and History of Science
The Idea of a Social Science
The Recovery of the Hermeneutical Dimension of Science
Philosophic Hermeneutics: A Primordial Mode of Being
Hermeneutics and Praxis
Political Judgment and Practical Discourse
Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis

PART TWO. SCIENCE, RATIONALITY, AND INCOMMENSURABILITY
The Practical Rationality of Theory-Choice
Kuhn and His Critics: The Common Ground
The Development of the Philosophy of Science
Incommensurability and the Natural Sciences
Incommensurability and the Social Disciplines

PART THREE. FROM HERMENEUTICS TO PRAXIS
The Cartesian Legacy
Truth and the Experience of Art
Understanding and Prejudice
The Hermeneutical Circle
Temporal Distance, Effective-Historical Consciousness, and the Fusion of Horizons
Application: The Rediscovery of the Fundamental Hermeneutical Problem
The Movement Beyond Philosophic Hermeneutics
Philosophic Hermeneutics and the Cartesian Anxiety

PART FOUR. PRAXIS, PRACTICAL DISCOURSE, AND JUDGMENT
A Historical Interlude
Practical Discourse: Habermas
Rorty's Metacritique
Judgment: Arendt
Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: The Practical Task

NOTES
APPENDIX. A LETTER BY PROFESSOR HANS-GEORG GADAMER
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SUBJECT INDEX
INDEX