Abstract

In this article I will present the main ideas of those thinkers who argue that natural sciences are receptive to a hermeneutical method of understanding. I will examine to what degree understanding used as a method in natural sciences differs from understanding used as a method in humanities and point out the universality of hermeneutical experience. At the beginning, I will state the authors who set sharp borders between the methods used in natural sciences and methods used in humanities. They regard hermeneutics exclusively as a method used in social sciences that is not capable of reaching the cognitive objectivity innate to natural sciences. However, by means of several examples from contemporary philosophy of science it can be proved that this classification is not valid.