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An original characteristic of Agazzi's philosophy of science is that, beside adopting several outlooks of the analytic approach, he also adopts some fundamental perspectives of hermeneutics, obtaining in such a way a very fruitful and stimulating complementation of those two ways of philosophizing, that otherwise have been considered (and often are still considered) to be at variance. The theory of objectivity advanced by Agazzi is based on the thesis that every science expresses a "point of view" on reality, that every scientific theory expresses a certain Gestalt within the respective domain of objects, that interpretation and explanation are indispensable both in natural and human sciences (and that explanation takes place within a certain interpretation), and on the fact that scientific objectivity is always "historically determined", because it develops within a historical-cultural context: these are all elements that would justify the thesis that Agazzi has actually offered a hermeneutic philosophy of science capable of safeguarding also the requirement of objectivity that cannot be overlooked in interpretations. In particular, this is supported by his explicit devoting a section of his major work to the "hermeneutic dimension of science". These facts are recalled in the present contribution, that goes on presenting the basic features of hermeneutics in general, offering in such a way an explicit complement to what is often only implicit in Agazzi's writings.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-16369-7_13

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