Interpretivism: for and against culture

In the schema presented in the Introduction, the first column is headed ‘Epistemology’. Objectivism, which we have related to positivism and post-positivism, and constructionism, which we dealt with in the last chapter, are examples of epistemological positions encountered within the field of social research. As stated already, we shall encounter examples of a more

Roots of interpretivism

Interpretivism is often linked to the thought of Max Weber (1864— 1920), who suggests that in the human sciences we are concerned with Verstehen (understanding). This has been taken to mean that Weber is contrasting the interpretative approach (Verstehen, understanding) needed in the human and social sciences with the explicative approach (Erklaren, explaining), focused

Symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism offers what is very much an American perspective on life, society and the world. As already noted when discussing constructionism, it stems from the thought of pragmatist philosopher and social psychologist George Herbert Mead. Mead’s teaching, which extended over a period of almost 40 years, principally at the University of Chicago, is

Phenomenology

Phenomenology, in itself, is a simple enough concept. The phenomenological movement was launched under the batde cry of ‘Back to the things themselves!’. The ‘things themselves’, as phenomenologists understand the phrase, are phenomena that present themselves immediately to us as conscious human beings. Phenomenology suggests that, if we lay aside, as best we can,

Interpretivism: the way of hermeneutics

The term ‘hermeneutics’ came into modem use in the seventeenth century in the context of biblical studies. Hermeneutics was, and is, the science of biblical interpretation. It provides guidelines for scholars as they engage in the task of interpreting Scripture. The actual explanation of what a biblical text means is known as exegesis. Behind

1 Comments

Historical origins of hermeneutics

While the word is only about two-and-a-half centuries old, hermeneutics as a disciplined approach to interpretation can be traced back to the ancient Greeks studying literature and to biblical exegesis in the Judeo- Christian tradition. The Greeks took texts to be wholes rather than merely a juxtaposition of unorganised parts. Because of this, they

The hermeneutic mode of understanding

What, one might ask, are the characteristic ways in which hermeneutic theories differ from other approaches to meaning and understanding? For a start, it can be said that, in one way or another, hermeneutics views texts as strange and far off. It is because of this alienation or ‘distantiation’ that the interpretative task is

Modern hermeneutics

Dilthey is of central importance in the history of modem hermeneutics. He was not the first modern hermeneuticist, however. Around the turn of the nineteenth century and in the early years of that century, it was Friedrich Ast (1778-1841) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) who extended hermeneutics beyond the realm of biblical exegesis. Schleiermacher, much

Critical inquiry: the Marxist heritage

In discussing interpretivism in the previous two chapters, the issue of critical inquiry has already emerged for us. By and large, interpretivism is an uncritical form of study. Phenomenology, to be sure, at least in its more authentic guise, is self-professedly critical. Still, not all phenomenologists have recognised the critical character of their enterprise

Critical inquiry of Karl Marx

Despite the caveat that has just been entered, Karl Marx (1818-83) must be recognised as one of the principal moulders of modem thought. Certainly, he more than anyone else has inspired and laid the foundation for the critical inquiry that obtains today. Marx was unlike Comte or Mill or any other representative thinker of

Marxism after Marx

On Marx’s death it was left to Friedrich Engels to take things forward. From papers left by Marx he compiled and published the two further volumes of Das Kapital Among those papers he found Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach, written in 1845. He published this work in edited form in 1888. We owe many other

The Institute for Social Research

The Frankfurt School has been mentioned several times already. It has its origins in the Institute for Social Research set up in 1924 under the patronage of Felix Weil. Weil, the son of a multimillionaire and a student of Robert Wildebrandt, a socialist professor of political economy at Tubingen, wanted to establish an institutional

Critical theory

The philosophical stance of the Frankfurt School might not have been dubbed ‘critical theory’ until the 1950s but the words themselves had certainly occurred in the writings of the School’s principal membership. In 1937, for example, in the Institute’s journal Zeitschrift fur Sozial- forschung (to become, from 1940 onwards, Studies in Philosophy and Social

Critical inquiry: contemporary critics & contemporary critique

This chapter links closely to the one we have just left. It will reinforce the continuity between the two if we take up again the matter of Habermas ‘s judgment on Adorno, referred to at the end of Chapter 6. Habermas, the most illustrious of the second-generation Frankfurt theorists, claims that Adorno, in rejecting

Jurgen Habermas and communicative reason

Horkheimer was suspicious of Habermas from the start. He was extremely critical of Habermas’s Students and Politics research project, a piece of work he undertook with Christoph Oehler and Friedrich Weltz soon after becoming an associate of the Institute in 1956. As Horkheimer saw it, some of the critique Habermas institutes in this work

Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed

Research in the vein of critical inquiry cannot escape the influence of Paulo Freire (1921-97), whose best known work is Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972a). Freire was a Brazilian educationalist who launched literacy programs among the peasant peoples of north-east Brazil in and around Recife in the early 1960s. He was a member of

Critical inquiry today

Critical forms of research call current ideology into question, and initiate action, in the cause of social justice. In the type of inquiry spawned by the critical spirit, researchers find themselves interrogating commonly held values and assumptions, challenging conventional social structures, and engaging in social action. Fuelling this enterprise is an abiding concern with

Feminism: re-visioning the man-made world

How do feminists envisage the human world they inhabit? And what, in consequence, are the assumptions that feminist researchers bring to their various forms of human inquiry? These questions, formulated here to target feminism and feminist research, are questions we have already addressed to positivism, interpretivism and critical inquiry. In doing so, we have

The many feminisms

How does one go about sorting out feminist issues? Perhaps one should start by listing and describing the various forms that feminism takes? While it appears logical enough to begin in that fashion, offering a typology of feminisms turns out to be a tricky thing to do. It is not just that a movement

Feminist ‘epistemology’

Tong’s categories have led us on a long journey. While this has been a speedy journey and we are left rather breathless, our fleeting glimpses of feminist landscapes along the way bring home to us the richness and diversity of feminist thought. We may well feel moved to retrace our steps and study these