5th Conference of the International Society for Hermeneutics & Science:

Barcelona, Spain

31 August – 3 September 2016

Closed session of the
4s/EASST Barcelona 2016:

 Hermeneutics: ‘let Nature and material things speak’

The motto of the 4s/EASST conference, ‘Science & technology by other means’, can also be explored by an hermeneutical approach. Nature and material things can be understood differently by different groups. Just like texts that can be read differently. ‘let Nature and material things speak’, the motto of the closed session of ISHS, fits into the material hermeneutics interests of Don Ihde. So we are very happy to find Ihde on our program. The presentations of this session are centered around his last book: Acoustic Technics (Postphenomenology and the Philosophy of Technology 2015. Acoustic Technics is about hi-tech acoustic phenomena. One really interesting development is acoustic means of medical diagnosis. Don Ihde talks about ‘listening to cancer’ and ‘hearing’ make a difference between malignant and cancerous cells. This is already possible for cervical and prostate cancers. So acoustic technics can be considered as an example of the motto of both the 4s/EASST and ISHS.

This ISHS closed session will be an opportunity to share reflections, ideas and findings on an hermeneutical approach of your research. Think of, for instance, what role do nature and material things play in your research? Or how to deal with the different interpretations. And finally how to take into account a new epistemological point of view.