Readdressing Objectivity. From Peirce to Betti, and Return

Busacchi, Vinicio

First

Investigation

2022-01-01

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Abstract

This study focuses on the important epistemological question of the objectivity of scientific knowledge by comparing the analyses and theories developed in the two different schools of hermeneutics and pragmatism. To justify the feasibility of the comparison, we proceed from the observation that, albeit in different ways, authors such as Gadamer and Peirce revolutionize the idea of experience and its theoretical scientific relevance issuing in a new conception of cognitive truth bearing fruits to the problem of objectivity. This comparison is intertwined with the critical resumption of Betti’s theoretical scientific research, which is useful for illustrating the articulation of this problem and the scope of the operations implemented in the context of contemporary hermeneutics and for probing the problem of scientific objectivity beyond the fields of the historical and social sciences. This possibility can be glimpsed by absorbing Betti’s approach to the problem of humanities into a theory of knowledge where a position of critical realism is associated with an interpretative component in hermeneutic and pragmatic keys.