A common observation of everyday life reveals the growing importance of data science methods, which are increasingly more and more important part of the mainstream of knowledge generation process. Digital technologies and their potential for data collection and data processing have initiated the birth of the fourth paradigm of science, based on Big Data. Key to these transformations is datafication and data mining that allow the discovery of knowledge from contaminated data. The main purpose of the considerations presented here is to describe the phenomena that make up these processes and indicate their possible epistemological consequences. It has been assumed that increasing datafication tendencies may result in the formation of a data- centric perception of all aspects of reality, making data and the methods of their processing a kind of higher instance shaping human thinking about the world. This research is theoretical in nature. Such issues as the process of datafication and data science have been analyzed with a focus on the areas that raise doubts about the validity of this form of cognition.

The aim of the text is to consider Gianni Vattimo’s claim that hermeneutics needs to be more rational due to its criticised relativism and aestheticism. From this perspective, the author considers the projects proposed by Bartosz Brożek and Chrysostomos Mantzavinos, based on the assumption that the cognitive phenomena underlying the understanding of human behaviour and the resulting artefacts can be described using naturalistic methods. Finally, the question is considered whether these attempts, coming from outside the hermeneutic movement, offer hope for eliminating the flaws of hermeneutics mentioned by Vattimo, and what are the prospects for further research on this issue.