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Modern biology is characterized through its methodology. The reductionism of natural sciences explains most of the biological facts in chemical and physical terms. In contrast to this observation and from a philosophical point of view the question is, whether biology needs hermeneutics as a complementary kind of discourse.Three starting-points are combined in this paper, first what Gadamer calls "hermeneutical practice" as a method, second the interpretation of some results from chronobiology in hermeneutical terms as an ">example and third H. Jonas' The Phenomenon of Life, Toward a Philosophical Biology (1966) as a program.Hermeneutics in biology is far from being a serious theory. However, throughout the ongoing progress in experimental research (here for example the measurement of time in chronobiology) scientific terms are used, which do have a long — mostly not reflected — philosophical tradition. Furthermore ("lebensweltliche") time-experiences made by a scientist, reveal that they do get in conflict with experimental methods in the area of research on biological clocks. Therefore this conflict of time measurement in natural sciences and time experiences in the everyday life of a scientist is one example for describing why a conception of "hermeneutical biology" could be fruitful.A second example in the context of H. Jonas' program of a "philosophical biology" is the description of the energy metabolism in the notion of H. Jonas and biology as natural science in contrast. The relation of energy metabolism and time limited to the fact that only a living person is able to describe life processes is also discussed.Finally, some general conclusions about the philosophical tradition from Aristotle and Kant to Heidegger, Gadamer and Blumenberg are made to criticize H. Jonas' metaphysical concept. On the other hand this concept contains a lot of phenomenological descriptions, which do have a high heuristic value for the hermeneutic approach of biology in future, with regard to discovering their ineliminable dependence upon ordinary language and communication as well as to show the need for a philosophical idea accounting for their role in the totality of human existence and experience.

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-015-9293-2_14

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