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The title of my talk today could serve as a heading for this whole conference.It is evident that the expression "human sciences" is problematic for us today and that we must come to the conclusion that science should be defined by us in another way than it is for modern times.This, of course, includes a certain justification of the older Greek conception of knowledge as "philosophy."It is not because of my special predilection for the Greeks that I propose this topic for today, but rather because of the necessity of seeking an epistemological selfunderstanding which is not based on the credence of the natural sciences and of the ideal of method as it was characteristically called at the beginning of the seventeenth century and as it dominates the research work and our academic activities in the humanities.It is for this reason alone that I want to go back to the philosophy of Aristotle, for it is this ancient philosopher who defended for the first time a special approach to the subjects of human action and human institutions.That it makes sense to investigate from this point of view the methodological impasses of our contemporary situation seems to me quite well illustrated by the meeting for which we have gathered together today.We have seen how the problem has already been expressed by Professor Apel in connecting it with this almost doctrine-like radicalism of Max Weber and the whole question of value-free research
Risser et al. (Mon,) studied this question.