Anti-Essentialism and the Integration of Philosophy and History: A Hermeneutical Approach to Science and Religion Discourses

The historiography of science and religion has had a considerable impact in science and religion discussions, showing that there is no enduring essence to science or religion. Such suggestion is, however, fraught with philosophical issues that paradoxically prevent a foundational integration of the valuable insights from the historiographical work in science and religion discourses. This article proposes a hermeneutical approach to bridge the gap between historiography and philosophy; history and philosophy are interpretive paths that unnecessarily clash due to the philosophical import of anti-essentialist historiography. Science and religion discourses can be opened up by focusing on how the temporality of things (history) and the being of things (philosophy) are hermeneutically integrated to create these discourses.