Whose tent are we in? : The value of fundamental criticism in, of, and for sociology
Description
This paper discusses a subject that has become increasingly delicate in recent years
in sociology and related fields and subfields, including ethnomethodology and conversation
analysis. The subject is criticism, particularly criticism of academic
tendencies and trends that are uncomfortably close to home. A portion of Wes Sharrock’s
voluminous body of writings is critical of attempts to turn vernacular expressions
into stable scientific concepts. Following Peter Winch, such conceptual criticism
extends to ‘the very idea’ of a social science, and following ethnomethodology
it re-examines the project of converting indexical expressions to formal analytical
instruments and objects. Not surprisingly, such criticism sometimes stirs strong and
indignant reactions and is shunned for being counterproductive. This paper discusses
rationales for this mode of criticism and presents two examples of conceptual
confusions that arise from ignoring the point of such criticism: one has to do with
efforts to treat motives as an explanatory factor in social research, and the other
has to do with efforts to use quantitative analysis to ‘test’ a ‘hypothesis’ about the
systematic uses of apologies in conversation.
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