Scientific Hermeneutics

The application of interpretive methods from the humanities to scientific practice itself. Scientific Hermeneutics treats scientific data, theories, and experiments as texts to be interpreted, not just facts to be collected. It asks: what do these numbers mean? What story are they telling? What context is needed to understand them? Who was the author, and what were they trying to say? It recognizes that science is not just explanation but also interpretation—that data never speaks for itself, and that understanding requires meaning-making, not just measurement.

"You've got statistically significant results, but Scientific Hermeneutics asks: what do they mean? What story do they tell? What context is missing? The numbers don't interpret themselves—that's your job, and it requires hermeneutic skill, not just statistical competence."

by Abzugal February 23, 2026

Scientific Phenomenology

The application of phenomenological methods to scientific investigation: attending carefully to how phenomena appear to consciousness before theorizing about them. The Phenomenological scientist brackets assumptions, sets aside theoretical commitments, and describes experience as precisely as possible. In fields like cognitive science, this means taking first-person experience seriously alongside third-person measurement. In medicine, it means attending to the lived experience of illness, not just the biological mechanisms. Phenomenology brings science back to experience, reminding it that all data is ultimately data-for-a-consciousness.

"The fMRI shows brain activation, but Scientific Phenomenology asks: what does it feel like to be the person in the scanner? What's their experience? Without that, you're studying brains, not minds. Phenomenology brings the first person back into science."

by Abzugal February 23, 2026

Scientific Critical Theory

The application of Critical Theory's insights to scientific practice: examining how power, social structures, and historical contexts shape scientific knowledge. Who funds research? Whose questions get asked? Whose bodies get studied? Who benefits from findings? Scientific Critical Theory doesn't reject science but subjects it to relentless critique, revealing how apparently neutral knowledge serves particular interests. It's science forced to confront its own politics, its own complicities, its own blind spots. Uncomfortable, necessary, and always asking "cui bono?"—who benefits?

"This medical research claims to be universal, but Scientific Critical Theory asks: who funded it? Who was in the sample? Who profits from the findings? Who's excluded from the conversation? Not because the science is wrong—because understanding power is part of understanding truth."

by Abzugal February 23, 2026

Scientific Horizon of Expectation

A concept adapted from literary theory (Jauss) for science: the framework of assumptions, theories, and prior knowledge that scientists bring to their research, shaping what they expect to find and what they're capable of seeing. Your horizon determines which questions seem worth asking, which data seem relevant, which explanations seem plausible. Breakthroughs occur when evidence shatters the horizon, forcing a new one. Scientific progress isn't just accumulating facts—it's the continuous expansion and revision of the horizon within which facts make sense.

"Before plate tectonics, geologists saw continental fit as coincidence—their Scientific Horizon of Expectation couldn't accommodate moving continents. The evidence was always there; they couldn't see it until the horizon shifted. Your horizon is not reality—it's just where you're standing."

by Abzugal February 23, 2026

Scientific Receptionalism

A framework emphasizing that scientific discovery depends as much on the receptivity of the scientific community as on the discovery itself. A finding only becomes knowledge when it's received—understood, accepted, integrated. Revolutionary ideas fail not because they're wrong but because the community isn't ready to receive them. Receptionalism studies the conditions under which science can hear new things: the paradigms, the power structures, the generational shifts, the conceptual tools available. It's science studying its own listening.

"Mendel's genetics were correct in 1865, but Scientific Receptionalism notes: the community couldn't receive them until 1900. The discovery wasn't the problem—the receptivity was. Your brilliant idea might be failing for the same reason. It's not you; it's the horizon."

by Abzugal February 23, 2026

Scientific Literalism

The mistaken belief that scientific models, theories, and concepts are literal descriptions of reality rather than useful approximations. The Literalist thinks an electron is "really" a particle, a gene is "really" a discrete unit, a map is "really" the territory. Scientific Literalism forgets that science builds models, not mirrors—useful fictions that help us predict and intervene, not photographs of the noumenal world. It's the error of confusing the menu for the meal, the map for the landscape, the model for reality.

"You're arguing about whether light is 'really' a particle or a wave. Scientific Literalism: it's neither—those are models we use because they work. The map is not the territory. Your literalism is preventing you from understanding what science actually does."

by Abzugal February 23, 2026

Scientific Postcritique

A movement in science studies that moves beyond the hermeneutics of suspicion—beyond always asking what power, ideology, or hidden interest lies behind scientific claims. Postcritique doesn't reject critique but supplements it with attention, repair, and reconstruction. It asks not just "what's wrong with this science?" but "what's valuable? What can we build? What should we preserve?" It's science after the deconstruction, after the critique, after the suspicion—still critical, but also constructive, also caring.

"We've spent decades deconstructing this field's biases. Scientific Postcritique says: okay, now what? What's still useful? What do we build next? Critique without reconstruction is just nihilism with better vocabulary."

by Abzugal February 23, 2026