ABSTRACT
The various social sciences seem to be quite isolated from one another and to be enormously fragmented within their own borders. Compounding the problem, there is no agreement at all concerning what methods of inquiry might clear up this situation. This chapter argues that deep confusions like this result from the taken-for-granted, questionable modern assumption that knowledge is fundamentally “representational.” This assumption means that knowledge or understanding can only be portrayed as a matter of what the philosopher Richard Bernstein calls “objectivism” or “relativism,” both of which turn out to be entirely inadequate. The chapter argues that philosophical hermeneutics offers a fundamental and credible way “beyond objectivism and relativism.”
