ABSTRACT
Hermeneutic reflection aims at uncovering the conditions of science and its truth-claim by considering it as a 'project': a mode of mastering and using objectifiable processes which is linked to a particular way of viewing the world and of knowledge-acquisition. The realization that sociology has its roots within the project of science should not obscure the difference between the study and control of natural and social processes, even though the latter may, in given historical conditions, appear in a quasi-natural form. Hermeneutic reflection on the status of science interprets the latter as a specific mode of interchange between man and nature within a historic and social context. In emphasizing the historically of science, hermeneutic thought provides a critique of and alternative to 'scientism'. A hermeneutic critique of scientism would consequently aim at evidencing the hermeneutic dimension presupposed in this view, to show that 'theoretical Reason has itself a normative basis'.
