Teorija kaip įšventinimas į tikrovės misteriją (Patirties mąstymas filosofinėje hermeneutikoje)

Abstract

In its severe critiąue of the content of the old tradition, postmodernism tends to avoid discussing the basic moment of this tradition, i.e. its theoretical attitude that is at the core of reflective rationality. More radical critiąue of rational reflection leads to a dichotomy bettveen theoretical and eiperiential thinking that grasp the main topics of contemporary philosophy in a deeper way. Therefore, a claim is made that virtual alternative for reflexive Western metaphysics should be sought in the direction of the philosophy of experience. It is found in the explication of philosophical hermeneutics in both its authorities - M.Heidegger and H.G.Gadamer. Experience, according to Gadamer, is an extremely wide concept that happens to be most undefined. Experience of scientific cognition is accumulated facts and empirical data that are later being used as material for a scientific experiment or any other research. Experience treated this way is only one of many steps of the scientific research: it prepares reflection that is scientific interpretation of these "meaningless" empirical facts and is a sole provider of the real cognition. This conception of experience is still encountered in the majority of postmodernist works that criticize the epoch of modernity. The critique is directed towards the contents of this experience, by no means aimed at its auxiliary and preparatory function in the process of human cognition, or its relation to the reflection, or the origin of that relation.