Das Verhältnis von Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft

The PhD thesis aims at the clarification of the relationship between our commonsense experience and the scientific explanation of the world around us. The sciences claim to provide knowledge of a special quality. The indication ‘scientifically proven’ for instance refers to the outstanding reliability of the findings and the verification procedures of the sciences. If this claim is not to be taken as an empty promise, it has to be shown wherein this particular quality of the scientific knowledge consists and in which way it differs from our ‘everyday’ knowledge. In conclusion, the thesis argues for the following view of the relationship between commonsense and scientific knowledge: Our everyday conceptions take their origin in the different practices that are pursued within our life-world. They are to be judged according their ability to back our everyday practices. The adequacy of these concepts does not reside in some correspondence to reality but in their appropriateness to the realisation of the different ends and practices that constitute our everyday business. The sciences have to be judged as well according their ability to back practices, namely the experimental and laboratory practices. The sciences are in addition subjected to the demand of a distinct and situation-invariant reproducibility of their results. For this purpose a standardisation of the scientific concepts is needed, which can rely on commonsense distinctions and concepts as its methodological starting point. As the particular quality of the sciences is located in this claim to distinctness and situation-invariance they cannot be regarded as per definition superior to our everyday knowledge.