Resumen
Hermeneutics is the study of interpretation, originally and usually, the interpretation of texts. The term is commonly encountered in religious studies where the meaning of sacred texts, written in archaic languages and linguistic forms, must be interpreted to a contemporary audience. When applied to systems and computer science, the minority hermeneutics paradigm centers on concepts of autonomy, multiple perspective, negotiated and ephemeral meaning, interpretation, emergence, self-organization, change and evolution. Logic, discrete math, structured development, artificial intelligence and information modeling as expressed in relational database theory are reflections of the formalist thinking, as are the metaphors computer "science" and "software engineering." In contrast, more recent advances in neural networks, cellular automata, genetic algorithms and complexity theory reflect hermeneutic ideas. While it is true that the divide separating formalists and hermeneuticists is very real and fundamental, it is not the case that the two sides are inevitable antagonists.