Abstract

How can we intellectually come to grips with empirical science? The logical analysisof science abstracts from its social and historical character, whereas the sociologicaland historical investigation of science cannot give an adequate account of its rationality. Nevertheless, both currents highlight important aspects of science, viz. rationality and factuality. We have to understand the internal relationship of the rationality and the factuality of science by way of philosophical hermeneutics. Hermeneutics interprets various historical shapes of science as examples of the striving for rationality. The sociological and methodological work of Max Weber is used to eludicate this thesis His social-scientific research on rationalization is guided by intuitions on the freedom and authenticity of individuals in society. These intuitions constitute the perspective of his empirical research. They are made explicit by the formation of extensionally determined concepts. In this way empirical science develops standards and scales forthe ordering of data. The question of the roots of the perspectivity of science is, however, not a hermeneutical but a metaphysical one. The intuitions that guide the concept formation and the ordering of data are the intellectual roots of the rationality of empirical science. These in tuitions allow us to relate to reality as such. It is the rationality of scientists which hereby becomes evident. Their freedom consists in letting themselves be guided by their intuitions. These are the lights which illuminate empirical reality. This is a metaphysical reflection on transcendence in human existence. As metaphysics it shows that empirical science is only one form of rationality. Metaphysics clarifies in this way our freedom in relation to the scientific analysis of our existence. The intellectual grip on science demonstrates its existential thing