Structuralist and hermeneutic approaches to development

Jos De Mul

pp. 223-243

in: Wouter van Haaften, Michiel Korthals, Thomas Wren (eds), Philosophy of development, Berlin, Springer, 1997

Abstract

The philosophy of development presented in this book has its roots in various philosophical traditions. In this chapter we will direct our attention to two of these traditions, structuralism and hermeneutics, in order to situate our metatheory of development in the contemporary philosophical landscape and to show that it is itself the result of a specific course of conceptual development. (In the next chapter we will defend our position against some postmodern critiques directed at earlier structuralist and hermeneutic conceptions of development.)