Publication 3995

Excerpt: Not only the historical development of informatics as a scientific and technical discipline but also its core problems are, prima facie, far removed from philosophical developments arising from soft sciences such as hermeneutics, and closer to logic or the philosophy of science. Is the relationship between informatics and hermeneutics of any mutual relevance? What happens when we reflect hermeneutically on the foundations of informatics? Winograd and Flores have made the attempt, and one result was their insight into “the non-obviousness of the rationalistic orientation” of informatics. Consequently, they found themselves “deeply concerned with the question of language.” My purpose is to show why Winograd and Flores have grasped, on the one hand, some key issues of Heidegger’s hermeneutics, while at the same time distorting some of his insights, particularly with regard to science and information technology.