The Language of Science: A Study of the Relationship Between Literature and Science in the Perspective of a Hermeneutical Ontology, with a Case Study of Darwin's The Origin of Species

In modern times science has avoided rhetorical and poetical forms. Its hallmarks were brevity and exactitude, with disdain for "non-functional" ornamentation. This book shows that the language of scientists does remain language and that a skillful use of its rhetorical and poetic aspects often determines the "facts" and the transmission of information. The exceptional literary qualities of Darwin's The Origin of Species are taken as a point in case. The importance of language in science has ontological implications: science can no longer be considered an action performed by a speaking subject on a mute object. Does the creative role of language in science mean that human beings "create" the world? The author emphatically rejects a conclusion which would degrade nature to mere malleable material at the mercy of human beings. A hermeneutical model for the relationship between knower and known is suggested: creative interaction between reader and text. The reader's responses actualise a text's meaning; in like manner, scientists give their responses to reality by actualising one of many possibilities. The hermeneutical ontology proposed in this book steers away from the rocks of realism and anti-realism.