Biohermeneutics, or How do We Understand Nature - A New Approach to Human Ecology

The article examines philosophical and theoretical origins of biohermeneutics. It shows that an analysis of problems of human ecology (what is life, what are the natural conditions of the life support and the development of man etc.) leads to the necessity of philosophical comprehension of the essential characteristics of human being, his mind, cognition and understanding. An orientation of cognition on «nature understanding» extends the limits of problems according to that the term «nature» is polysemantic - its meaning is changing subject of the context of application, and with the context a conceptual meaning of the term itself is changing too. The author gives historical and philosophical excursus into such problems. She considers the grounds on which W. Dilthey distinguishes natural sciences and humanities, then discerning three types of science: physicochemical ones which are based on mathematical knowledge and studying quantitative relations, humanities which are based on hermeneutical knowledge of the structure of psychic life, and biological sciences which are based on the knowledge of purposeful nexus. These ideas get a new meaning in the works of Helmut Plessner who formulates an apriorisric «theory of essential attributes of organic» where the main category is the concept of the boundary (Outer boundary separating one living creature from another and Internal, corporal). In his «philosophy of nature» or biophilosophy he traces the grounds for implementation of hermeneutic approach to life studies. The author of article also considers a substantiation by Anton Markos an issue of hermeneutical understanding of sign processes in living systems, starting from H.-G. Gadamer and his existential hermeneutics, that leads to the rise of «biohermeneutical school» within modern biosemiotics.

философия, экология, природа, жизнь, живые существа, универсалии, разум, понимание, интерпретация, науки о жизни, понятие границы, позициональность, биогерменевтика, текст, нарратив, philosophy, ecology, nature, life, life creatures, universals, mind, understanding, interpretation, life sciences, concept of the boundary, positionality, biohermeneutics, text, narrative

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