Hermeneutics that has long history faces a new challenge moving away from a view that sees the essence of recognition as a traditional, theoretical concept of a priori knowledge, which is episteme to the one of practical wisdom of phronesis,and situat...
Hermeneutics that has long history faces a new challenge moving away from a view that sees the essence of recognition as a traditional, theoretical concept of a priori knowledge, which is episteme to the one of practical wisdom of phronesis,and situational understanding. However, despite the hermeneutic/ontological achievements that Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer and Habermas made, reason-centered ideas which are attitudes toward theological or transcendental idea or positive belief in human abilities has been criticized. Although there are de-constructionist hermeneutic scholars that tried to overcome the limitation of the traditional hermeneutics, they also do not find themselves free from an old scientific idea, which is non-substantial phenomena cannot be subject of natural science. The contemporary philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, and Giles Deleuze, who implicitly studied the essence of understanding in the area of hermeneutics broadened the horizon of hermeneutics by discussing mental phenomena relating to body. However, body they discussed is limited to ontological understanding and does not fully get away from existing hermeneutic ideas. Considering that this limitation of contemporary hermeneutics is based on an abstract idea on ``understanding`` not on actual formula or procedures, the exit of contemporary hermeneutics could be found in cognitive science. On this respect, this study aims to broaden the horizon of hermeneutics by examining the idea of Dilthey who established the foundation of hermeneutic history. He notes that parts and the whole of life is in the circulative relationship. This paper also examines a concept of sympathy in a mirror neurons theory that is part of cognitive science. Therefore, this study focuses on the relationship between Dilthey`s psychiatrical, hermeneutic, and historical methodologies and cognitive scientific recognition. I hope this study will open another door to discuss hermeneutics through cognitive science, which sees neurophilosophy or neurophenomenologyas a method to study hermeneutics.