There is a growing interest in interdisciplinary work in the fields of communicology, sociology and philosophy. In particular, research on interaction between the individual and community, especially regarding communication and the construction of meaning both in face-to-face interaction and in textual or symbolic mediation, seems to profit greatly from an interdisciplinary approach. Due to it's highly developed introspective methods, phenomenology is gaining recognition as discipline offering access to communication processes from the vantage point of the individual; hermeneutics on the other hand provides a means to access meaning developed historically and shared by a community. 

This website offers an introduction to research being done in Cologne area on communication using methods developed from phenomenology and hermeneutics. The reason for publicizing this research is to foster networking among scholars and researchers who are working in related fields.

This locus of research here focuses on developing an understanding of communication that rests on the thinking of Husserl, Huizinga, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Gadamer. Based upon this theoretical understanding, concrete hermeneutical and phenomenological methods are being developed that can be used in empirical research. A distinguishing characteristic of the research done here is that barriers separating the humanities and empirical sciences be broken down for mutual fruition: The empirical sciences should profit from the more open theoretical horizon of the humanities;  the humanities should gain from the rigour that dominates the empirical sciences.