Interpretive Sociology Discussion Questions

From SandeepPurao

Discussion

1. The starding for this paradigm is Kant (You will recall that Comte, who is considered the first proponent of the Functionalist paradigm, believed that all sciences passed through three phases of development: theological, metaphysical and positive). In contrast, what do you think Kant believed?
2. A key contribution in this paradigm is hermeneutics, which started with Dilthey. Can you paraphrase what Dilthey's verstehen is with an example?
3. Here is a gimme - somewhere in between the important 'hermeneutics' position and 'phenomenology' (in terms of time) is something called solipsism (that appears to be fairly lopsided). What is this position? How does the counter-argument provided by its opponents actually provides further support to the position? And where does this ship take us?
4. Next comes phenomenology. Can you connect two of Husserl's terms: 'intentionality' and 'conjunction'? (on a related note, have you ever tried to banish all thought from your mind i.e. focus on 'nothing'? Try it - but during the break please :) Difficult, is it not?)
5. And then, it is Shutz - who tries to take this to incorporate "inter-subjective understanding." In a naive sense, do you think Shutz's ideas can explain why husbands and wives (or for that matter, nations) argue?
6. Another important contribution from this paradigm is ethnomethodology (think Garfinkel not Garfield). Two key ideas here include indexicality and reflexivity (That sounds like building an index in a database to retrieve records, and bending backwards to see where one has been.) How do these contribute to ethnomethodology?
7. One more issue about ethnomethodology - do you think it tries to uncover 'order' in human affairs that is sitting there for the researcher to uncover?
8. Time to discuss the key elements that underlie this paradigm. Consider the case of "science" as Burrell and Morgan do. Do you agree with this stance?
9. A final gimme - Burrell and Morgan use the term 'nominalist' to characterize theoretical positions in this paradigm. Explain what they mean.