Formal Indicators and Scientific Concepts

Abstract

A principal theme of hermeneutical phenomenology of science has been to analyze the status of theoretical entities. In Ginev’s ambitious analysis of contemporary trends in hermeneutic phenomenology of science, for instance, one of the two “hermeneutic circles” he describes involves the constitution of objects of inquiry, as “mathematized entities” associated with data-models, which has a formal side in theory and an empirical side in experimentation. The question then arises of the relation between the two sides; the danger, he puts it, is a theoretical essentialism which is implied when the mathematical projection is conceived as operationalized by experiment. Ginev’s proposal to avoid this involves the concept of “inscription.” This paper proposes another approach, covariant realism, which draws from Heidegger’s notion of “formal indication” and which makes explicit the temporality of theoretical objects in the flow of the research process. Heidegger developed his notion as an integral part of his hermeneutics of facticity; its motivation was the need to develop a discourse adequate for pre-theoretical experience. While it may seem strange to apply this idea so far out of context, it seems poised to address certain long-standing problems in the philosophy of science, those of incommensurability and scientific theory change. Formal indication characterizes phenomena that are understood to be provisionally grasped, already interpreted, and anticipated as able to show themselves differently in different contexts. The value of this admittedly nonstandard transformation of Heidegger’s concept suggests deeper possibilities for continentally-inspired approaches to understanding science practice than have hitherto been explored.