A Hermeneutic Study Of Kuhn 's Historic Philosophy Of Science

Continental and Anglo-American analytic philosophy are the two mainstreams of Western philosophy, each with it’s tradition and research priority. Since the1960s, as the most important member in historicism school, Kuhn has achieved the "paradigm shift" in philosophy of science, which called a "revolt" against the tradition of Anglo-American philosophy of science, and moved closer to the tradition of Continental Hermeneutics. Kuhn’s philosophy of science clearly reflected that the nature of the natural sciences embodies the factor of Hermeneutic. Thus the fusion between the two mainstreams of Western philosophy and the "two cultures"-Science and the Humanities can be found in the view of Hermeneutics. Kuhn’s philosophy of science has also been recognized the important symbol of the formation of Hermeneutics of Science.This paper focuses on the hermeneutical factors in Kuhn’s philosophy of science, Trying to show the process from the traditional philosophy of science to the Hermeneutics of Science and the fusional trend of the two philosophical mainstreams, The article consists of four parts.The first part reviews Kuhn’s life and academic experience, as well as the source of Kuhn’s ideas, Due to Kuhn’s historical approach to the study of philosophy of science, This article focused on his history source, which can be traced to J.B.Conant and Alexandre Koyre.The second part firstly reviews the backgrounds of Kuhn’s historicism steering of the philosophy of science-the process from logical positivism to Popper’s Falsificationism, then gives a brief introduction of Kuhn’s historicism philosophy of science, which includes the theories of Paradigm and science Community, the dynamic models about development of science-the scientific revolution and the Incommensurability.The third part is the center of this article. Analysis focused on the hermeneutical factors in Kuhn’s philosophy of science, trying to clarify Kuhn’s "revolt" against the traditional philosophy of science, approaching to European Hermeneutics.Firstly, historical factors of Kuhn’s philosophy of science are similar to which Hermeneutics embodies, both of them are confronted with the same problem "how to understand". Kuhn has taken the same historical approach as hermeneutics. His "Aristotle experience" represents the typical Hermeneutical approach in the case studies of history of science.Secondly, through the comparative study of Kuhn’s Paradigm and "Prejudice" in hermeneutics, this part tries to elucidate the amazing similarities between them. Paradigm dominated the understanding of science through scientific community, and "Prejudice" has the same function in understanding activities. Both of them are closely related to language, and are all immersed in language.Finally, Kuhn’s critique of traditional philosophy of science has the hermeneutical meaning, which demonstrates Kuhn’s "revolt" against traditional Anglo-American philosophy and close to Continental hermeneutics. Kuhn’s view on the "theory-observation" issue is the same as "Hermeneutical Circle". Kuhn’s critique and the ontology steering in Hermeneutics have much in common.The fourth part describes the significance of the Hermeneutical study on Kuhn’s philosophy of science. Kuhn started the fusion of two major philosophical traditions, and achieved the integration of the humanities and natural sciences methodology in Hermeneutics perspective, which is an important symbol of the formation of Hermeneutics of Science.