Hermeneutical Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Sciences

P. Ricœur establishes a methodological relationship between epistemology and hermeneutical phenomenology, considering epistemology as mediation between phenomenology and hermeneutics. Ricœur’s consideration of epistemology as mediation is profoundly related to his specific notion of text. This paper shows that even if Ricœur’s philosophy does not refer to the epistemology of natural sciences, the latter can be deepened by hermeneutical phenomenology: phenomenology clarifies the birth of a conceptual network of a theory; epistemology clarifies its internal structure; hermeneutics clarifies its interpretation and its relation with physical reality.