In modern philosophical and methodological literature, hermeneutics is by no means always considered as a cognitive strategy. The scope of its application is limited, as a rule, to the field of humanities. Today, after the thorough philosophical works of M. Heidegger and H.-G. Gadamer practically no longer disputed the ontological status of hermeneutics, and along with their argumentation, the interpretation of understanding as the existence of the world is accepted. Moreover, since the ideas of the relativity of scientific knowledge and the recognition of the multiplicity of interpretations as a necessary element of the modern scientific picture of the world prevail in modern philosophical and methodological developments, hermeneutics is recognized in the onotological projection as an element of scientific knowledge as a whole. Of course, few people today doubt that interest in hermeneutics as a method is associated with pluralism of opinions and, accordingly, with the relativization of scientific knowledge. And this interpretation of hermeneutics fits well with modern intellectual trends. However, the destructiveness of relativistic attitudes for science today is becoming more and more obvious and stimulates the search for conceptual alternatives in the philosophical and methodological consciousness of science. In this context, the opinion of the Russian philosopher, dealing with the problems of understanding and interpretation at the beginning of the 20th century, and developing the idea of hermeneutics as a method of cognition, which can be opposed to its relativistic interpretation, is of particular interest. This is the position of Gustav Gustavovich Shpet. The article will update his concept of hermeneutics as a methodological strategy for the humanities and show its significance in relation to the practice of the scientific study of archival non-texts.